Preferences for Redistribution and Perception of Fairness: An Experimental Study
Forthcoming, Journal of the European Economic Association
48 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2013
Date Written: August 6, 2013
Abstract
We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how demand for redistribution of income depends on self-interest, insurance motives, and social concerns relating to inequality and efficiency. Our choice environments feature large groups of subjects and real world framing, and differ with respect to the source of inequality (earned or arbitrary), the cost of taxation to the decision maker, the dead-weight loss of taxation, uncertainty about own pre-tax income, and whether the decision maker is affected by redistribution. We estimate utility weights for the different sources of demand for redistribution, with the potential to inform modeling in macroeconomics and political economy.
Keywords: income distribution, political economy, redistribution, social preferences
JEL Classification: D31, P16, H24, C91
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Preferences for Redistribution
By Alberto F. Alesina and Paola Giuliano
-
Preferences for Redistribution
By Alberto F. Alesina and Paola Giuliano
-
Preferences for Redistribution
By Alberto F. Alesina and Paola Giuliano
-
Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: the Poum Hypothesis
By Roland Bénabou and Efe A. Ok
-
Why Doesn't the Us Have a European-Style Welfare State?
By Alberto F. Alesina, Edward L. Glaeser, ...
-
Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics
By Roland Bénabou and Jean Tirole