IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v155y2017icp1-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Distributional preferences and political behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Fisman, Raymond
  • Jakiela, Pamela
  • Kariv, Shachar

Abstract

We document the relationship between distributional preferences and voting decisions in a large and diverse sample of Americans. Using a generalized dictator game, we generate individual-level measures of fair-mindedness (the weight on oneself versus others) and equality-efficiency tradeoffs. Subjects' equality-efficiency tradeoffs predict their political decisions: equality-focused subjects are more likely to have voted for Barack Obama in 2012, and to be affiliated with the Democratic Party. Our findings shed light on how American voters are motivated by their distributional preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Fisman, Raymond & Jakiela, Pamela & Kariv, Shachar, 2017. "Distributional preferences and political behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 1-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:155:y:2017:i:c:p:1-10
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.08.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272717301421
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.08.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Syngjoo Choi & Shachar Kariv & Wieland M?ller & Dan Silverman, 2014. "Who Is (More) Rational?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1518-1550, June.
    2. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    3. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    4. Varian, Hal R, 1982. "The Nonparametric Approach to Demand Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 945-973, July.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    6. Corneo, Giacomo & Fong, Christina M., 2008. "What's the monetary value of distributive justice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 289-308, February.
    7. Raymond Fisman & Shachar Kariv & Daniel Markovits, 2007. "Individual Preferences for Giving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1858-1876, December.
    8. Charness, Gary & Rabin, Matthew, 2005. "Expressed preferences and behavior in experimental games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 151-169, November.
    9. David K. Levine, 1998. "Modeling Altruism and Spitefulness in Experiment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(3), pages 593-622, July.
    10. Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2016. "Generalized Social Marginal Welfare Weights for Optimal Tax Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 24-45, January.
    11. Corneo, Giacomo & Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. "Individual preferences for political redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 83-107, January.
    12. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    13. Afriat, Sidney N, 1972. "Efficiency Estimation of Production Function," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 13(3), pages 568-598, October.
    14. Charles Bellemare & Sabine Kröger & Arthur van Soest, 2008. "Measuring Inequity Aversion in a Heterogeneous Population Using Experimental Decisions and Subjective Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(4), pages 815-839, July.
    15. Bolton, Gary E, 1991. "A Comparative Model of Bargaining: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1096-1136, December.
    16. 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.
    17. Bellemare, Charles & Kröger, Sabine & van Soest, Arthur, 2011. "Preferences, intentions, and expectation violations: A large-scale experiment with a representative subject pool," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 349-365, May.
    18. Ilyana Kuziemko & Michael I. Norton & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2015. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1478-1508, April.
    19. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    20. Hans Peter Gruner & Giacomo Corneo, 2000. "Social Limits to Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1491-1507, December.
    21. Fisman, Raymond & Jakiela, Pamela & Kariv, Shachar, 2015. "How did distributional preferences change during the Great Recession?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 84-95.
    22. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 436-444, June.
    23. Syngjoo Choi & Raymond Fisman & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2007. "Consistency, Heterogeneity, and Granularity of Individual Behavior under Uncertainty," Economics Working Papers 0076, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science.
    24. Raymond Fisman & Pamela Jakiela & Shachar Kariv, 2014. "The Distributional Preferences of Americans," NBER Working Papers 20145, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Hal R. Varian, 1983. "Non-parametric Tests of Consumer Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(1), pages 99-110.
    26. Roth, Alvin E. & Vesna Prasnikar & Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara & Shmuel Zamir, 1991. "Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1068-1095, December.
    27. Hong, Hao & Ding, Jianfeng & Yao, Yang, 2015. "Individual social welfare preferences: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 89-97.
    28. David Ahn & Syngjoo Choi & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2014. "Estimating ambiguity aversion in a portfolio choice experiment," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 195-223, July.
    29. Syngjoo Choi & Raymond Fisman & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2007. "Consistency and Heterogeneity of Individual Behavior under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1921-1938, December.
    30. Fong, Christina, 2001. "Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 225-246, November.
    31. Gary E. Bolton & Axel Ockenfels, 1998. "Strategy and Equity: An ERC Analysis of the Guth-van Damme Game," Levine's Working Paper Archive 2060, David K. Levine.
    32. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    33. James Andreoni & John Miller, 2002. "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 737-753, March.
    34. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 436-444.
    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. Raymond Fisman & Pamela Jakiela & Shachar Kariv & Silvia Vannutelli, 2023. "The distributional preferences of Americans, 2013–2016," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(4), pages 727-748, September.
    2. Fisman, Raymond & Kariv, Shachar & Markovitz, Daniel, 2005. "Distinguishing Social Preferences from Preferences for Altruism," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt9q26c4fr, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    3. Fehr, Dietmar & Müller, Daniel & Preuss, Marcel, 2024. "Social mobility perceptions and inequality acceptance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 366-384.
    4. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    5. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    6. 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.
    7. Christian Pfarr & Andreas Schmid & Morten Raun Mørkbak, 2018. "Modelling Heterogeneous Preferences for Income Redistribution–An Application of Continuous and Discrete Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 270-294, June.
    8. Hong, Hao & Ding, Jianfeng & Yao, Yang, 2015. "Individual social welfare preferences: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 89-97.
    9. Grimalday, Gianluca & Karz, Anirban & Proto, Eugenio, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance: Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 93, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    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. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 207-231, August.
    12. Lionel Page & Daniel G. Goldstein, 2016. "Subjective beliefs about the income distribution and preferences for redistribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(1), pages 25-61, June.
    13. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Matthieu Leprince & Matthieu Pourieux, 2019. "Distributive Preferences of Public Representatives: A Field-in-the-Lab Experiment," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-05-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    14. Jan (J.P.M.) Heufer & Jason Shachat & Yan Xu, 2018. "Measuring tastes for equity and aggregate wealth behind the veil of ignorance," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 18-087/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Kariv, Shachar & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2023. "The development gap in economic rationality of future elites," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 866-878.
    16. Raymond Fisman & Pamela Jakiela & Shachar Kariv, 2014. "The Distributional Preferences of Americans," NBER Working Papers 20145, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s1), pages 207-231, August.
    18. Castillo, Marco E. & Cross, Philip J. & Freer, Mikhail, 2019. "Nonparametric utility theory in strategic settings: Revealing preferences and beliefs from proposal–response games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 60-82.
    19. Cardella, Eric & Roomets, Alex, 2022. "Pay distribution preferences and productivity effects: An experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    20. Cabeza Martínez, Begoña, 2023. "Social preferences, support for redistribution, and attitudes towards vulnerable groups," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distributional preferences; Social preferences; Fair-mindedness; Self-interest impartiality; Equality; Efficiency; Redistribution; Political decisions; Voting; Party affiliation; American Life Panel (ALP); Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers

    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:eee:pubeco:v:155:y:2017:i:c:p:1-10. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    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.