IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sap/wpaper/wp194.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Fazio

Abstract

As winners of the "genetic lottery", beautiful people have several advantages over their life course: they earn more, find better jobs, and are happier than their peers. We investigate whether good-looking individuals are willing to share their fortune by supporting income redistribution. Using German data, we show that beauty is associated with lower support for redistribution. Furthermore, we show that attractive individuals are more likely to believe that income should be based solely on individual achievements. To check whether the set of questions used to measure taste for redistribution captures the underlying preferences, we then inves- tigate a possible correlation between voting behavior and beauty. We show that beauty correlates with voting for the Free Democratic Party (FDP) thus suggesting that the correlation between beauty and preferences for redistribution is channeled through party affiliation. Our findings resist to a broad set of robustness checks. A plausible mechanism that drives our findings is the self-serving bias, that is to say: people tend to attribute success to their own merit and failure to external factors. Overall, our results suggest that benefiting from random luck, such as winning the "genetic lottery", reduces taste for redistribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Fazio, 2021. "Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?," Working Papers in Public Economics 194, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    • Handle: RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.uniroma1.it/dip_ecodir/sites/default/files/wpapers/wp194.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Armando Miano & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2023. "Immigration and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(1), pages 1-39.
    2. Richard Breen & Kristian Bernt Karlson & Anders Holm, 2013. "Total, Direct, and Indirect Effects in Logit and Probit Models," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 42(2), pages 164-191, May.
    3. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Gordon, Rachel A. & Crosnoe, Robert, 2019. "'O Youth and Beauty:' Children's Looks and Children's Cognitive Development," IZA Discussion Papers 12708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Roland Benabou & Efe A. Ok, 2001. "Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The Poum Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 447-487.
    5. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Abrevaya, Jason, 2013. "Beauty is the promise of happiness?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 351-368.
    6. Corneo, Giacomo & Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. "Individual preferences for political redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 83-107, January.
    7. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 699-746.
    8. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    9. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner & Paul Sullivan, 2019. "Beauty, Job Tasks, and Wages: A New Conclusion about Employer Taste-Based Discrimination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 602-615, October.
    10. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1753-1788.
    11. Markus M. Mobius & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2006. "Why Beauty Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 222-235, March.
    12. Berggren, Niclas & Jordahl, Henrik & Poutvaara, Panu, 2017. "The right look: Conservative politicians look better and voters reward it," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 79-86.
    13. Roberto Bonilla & Francis Kiraly & John Wildman, 2019. "Beauty Premium And Marriage Premium In Search Equilibrium: Theory And Empirical Test," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 851-877, May.
    14. Fabio Sabatini & Marco Ventura & Eiji Yamamura & Luca Zamparelli, 2020. "Fairness and the Unselfish Demand for Redistribution by Taxpayers and Welfare Recipients," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 971-988, January.
    15. Dreber, Anna & Gerdes, Christer & Gränsmark, Patrik, 2013. "Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-18.
    16. Póvoa, Angela Cristiane Santos & Pech, Wesley & Viacava, Juan José Camou & Schwartz, Marcos Tadeu, 2020. "Is the beauty premium accessible to all? An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Jaeger, Bastian & Sleegers, Willem W.A. & Evans, Anthony M. & Stel, Mariëlle & van Beest, Ilja, 2019. "The effects of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness in online peer-to-peer markets," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PA).
    18. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Oswald, Andrew J., 2014. "Does Money Make People Right-Wing and Inegalitarian? A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Winners," IZA Discussion Papers 7934, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "Experienced inequality and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 251-262.
    20. Alberto Alesina & Stefanie Stantcheva & Edoardo Teso, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 521-554, February.
    21. Doorley, Karina & Sierminska, Eva, 2015. "Myth or fact? The beauty premium across the wage distribution in Germany," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 29-34.
    22. Gualtieri, Giovanni & Nicolini, Marcella & Sabatini, Fabio, 2019. "Repeated shocks and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 53-71.
    23. Ulrich Kohler & Kristian Bernt Karlson & Anders Holm, 2011. "Comparing coefficients of nested nonlinear probability models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 11(3), pages 420-438, September.
    24. Andreoni, James & Petrie, Ragan, 2008. "Beauty, gender and stereotypes: Evidence from laboratory experiments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 73-93, February.
    25. Hyeokmoon Kweon & Casper A.P. Burik & Richard Karlsson Linner & Ronald de Vlaming & Aysu Okbay & Daphne Martschenko & Kathryn Paige Harden & Thomas A. DiPrete & Philipp D. Koellinger, 2020. "Genetic Fortune: Winning or Losing Education, Income, and Health," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-053/V, Tinbergen Institute, revised 01 Dec 2020.
    26. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Understanding Tax Policy: How do People Reason?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2309-2369.
    27. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl, 2010. "The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 155-176, February.
    28. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2006. "Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 23-48, Spring.
    29. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    30. Maurizio Bussolo & Ada Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell & Anna Giolbas & Iván Torre, 2021. "I Perceive Therefore I Demand: The Formation of Inequality Perceptions and Demand for Redistribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(4), pages 835-871, December.
    31. Fletcher, Jason M. & Lehrer, Steven F., 2011. "Genetic lotteries within families," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 647-659, July.
    32. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Monica Singhal, 2011. "Culture, Context, and the Taste for Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 157-179, February.
    33. Thomas Piketty, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 551-584.
    34. Romain Espinosa & Bruno Deffains & Christian Thöni, 2020. "Debiasing preferences over redistribution: an experiment," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(4), pages 823-843, December.
    35. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    36. Fong, Christina, 2001. "Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 225-246, November.
    37. G. Andersen, Asbjørn & Franklin, Simon & Getahun, Tigabu & Kotsadam, Andreas & Somville, Vincent & Villanger, Espen, 2023. "Does wealth reduce support for redistribution? Evidence from an Ethiopian housing lottery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    38. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(2), pages 187-278.
    39. Robert H. Frank, 2016. "Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10663.
    40. Paola Giuliano & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2014. "Growing up in a Recession," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 787-817.
    41. Buser, Thomas & Grimalda, Gianluca & Putterman, Louis & van der Weele, Joël, 2020. "Overconfidence and gender gaps in redistributive preferences: Cross-Country experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 267-286.
    42. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    43. Heinemann Friedrich & Janeba Eckhard, 2011. "Viewing Tax Policy Through Party-Colored Glasses: What German Politicians Believe," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 286-311, August.
    44. Harper, Barry, 2000. "Beauty, Stature and the Labour Market: A British Cohort Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 62(0), pages 771-800, Special I.
    45. Arunachalam, Raj & Watson, Sara, 2018. "Height, Income and Voting," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 1027-1051, October.
    46. Deffains, Bruno & Espinosa, Romain & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Political self-serving bias and redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 67-74.
    47. Weinzierl, Matthew, 2017. "Popular acceptance of inequality due to innate brute luck and support for classical benefit-based taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 54-63.
    48. John Karl Scholz & Kamil Sicinski, 2015. "Facial Attractiveness and Lifetime Earnings: Evidence from a Cohort Study," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 14-28, March.
    49. Giovanni Gualtieri & Marcella Nicolini & Fabio Sabatini & Luca Zamparelli, 2019. "Repeated Shocks and Preferences for Redistribution," Working Papers 2018.15, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    50. Ulrich Kohler, 2011. "Comparing coefficients between nested nonlinear probability models," German Stata Users' Group Meetings 2011 08, Stata Users Group.
    51. Oreffice, Sonia & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2016. "Beauty, body size and wages: Evidence from a unique data set," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 24-34.
    52. Kapoor, Sacha & Magesan, Arvind, 2019. "Having it easy: Discrimination and specialization in the workplace," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 153-173.
    53. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1998. "Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 172-201, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fazio, Andrea, 2022. "Attractiveness and preferences for redistribution," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    2. Bellani Luna & Fazio Andrea & Scervini Francesco, 2023. "Collective negative shocks and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Germany," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(2), pages 381-403, June.
    3. Gualtieri, Giovanni & Nicolini, Marcella & Sabatini, Fabio, 2019. "Repeated shocks and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 53-71.
    4. Fabio Sabatini & Marco Ventura & Eiji Yamamura & Luca Zamparelli, 2020. "Fairness and the Unselfish Demand for Redistribution by Taxpayers and Welfare Recipients," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 971-988, January.
    5. Andrea Fazio & Tommaso Reggiani, 2022. "Minimum wage and tolerance for inequality," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2022-07, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    6. Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "Experienced inequality and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 251-262.
    7. Andreoli, Francesco & Olivera, Javier, 2020. "Preferences for redistribution and exposure to tax-benefit schemes in Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Gualtieri, Giovanni & Nicolini, Marcella & Sabatini, Fabio & Zamparelli, Luca, 2018. "Natural disasters and demand for redistribution: lessons from an earthquake," MPRA Paper 86445, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Erik Schokkaert & Tom Truyts, 2017. "Preferences for redistribution and social structure," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(3), pages 545-576, December.
    10. David Chavanne & Kevin A. McCabe & Maria Pia Paganelli, 2015. "Are Self-Made Men Made Equally? An Experimental Test of Impartial Redistribution and Perceptions of Self-Determination," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 40, pages 1-3.
    11. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Monica Singhal, 2011. "Culture, Context, and the Taste for Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 157-179, February.
    12. Giovanni Gualtieri & Marcella Nicolini & Fabio Sabatini & Luca Zamparelli, 2019. "Repeated Shocks and Preferences for Redistribution," Working Papers 2018.15, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    13. Fehr Ernst & Epper Thomas & Senn Julien, 2020. "Social preferences and redistributive politics," ECON - Working Papers 339, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Aug 2023.
    14. Gilles Le Garrec, 2018. "Fairness, social norms and the cultural demand for redistribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(2), pages 191-212, February.
    15. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for Redistribution around the World," Working Papers 26/2012, Universidade Portucalense, Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia (CIGE).
    16. Ilpo Kauppinen & Panu Poutvaara, 2019. "Preferences for Redistribution and International Migration," ifo Working Paper Series 283, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    17. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for redistribution around the world," Discussion Papers 2012/2, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    18. Pfarr Christian & Ulrich Volker, 2011. "Discrete-Choice-Experimente zur Ermittlung der Präferenzen für Umverteilung," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 62(3), pages 232-262, December.
    19. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2020. "Beauty perks: Physical appearance, earnings, and fringe benefits," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    20. Bernasconi, Michele & Neunhoeffer, Frieder, 2023. "The income inequality trap: When redistributive preferences do not correct greater inequality," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Beauty; Self-Serving Bias; Preferences for Redistribution; Luck;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D69 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Other
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp194. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Luisa Giuriato (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dprosit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.