IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v55y2020i4d10.1007_s00355-020-01265-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Debiasing preferences over redistribution: an experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Romain Espinosa

    (CNRS, CREM-Université de Rennes 1)

  • Bruno Deffains

    (CRED-Université Panthéon-Assas)

  • Christian Thöni

    (University of Lausanne)

Abstract

We study the manipulation of preferences over redistribution. Previous work showed that preferences over redistribution are malleable by the experience of success or failure in a preceding real-effort task. We manipulate the information subjects receive about the importance of chance relative to effort in determining success. We investigate the effect of this manipulation on (1) subjects’ redistribution choices affecting third parties, and (2) preferences for redistributive taxation. Our results show that informing the subjects about the relative importance of chance after the real-effort task does not mitigate the self-serving bias in redistribution choices. Only providing full information before the real-effort task prevents the emergence of the self-serving bias.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:55:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s00355-020-01265-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-020-01265-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-020-01265-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-020-01265-z?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ubeda, Paloma, 2014. "The consistency of fairness rules: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 88-100.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Guido Cozzi & Noemi Mantovan, 2012. "The Evolution of Ideology, Fairness and Redistribution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(565), pages 1244-1261, December.
    3. Linda Babcock & George Loewenstein, 1997. "Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 109-126, Winter.
    4. Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2017. "Fairness and the proportionality principle," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(3), pages 709-719, December.
    5. Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël Weele, 2014. "Preferences For Redistribution And Perception Of Fairness: An Experimental Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1059-1086, August.
    6. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    7. Spiekermann, Kai & Weiss, Arne, 2016. "Objective and subjective compliance: a norm-based explanation of 'moral wiggle room'," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64643, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Antonio Cabrales & Rosemarie Nagel & José Rodríguez Mora, 2012. "It is Hobbes, not Rousseau: an experiment on voting and redistribution," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(2), pages 278-308, June.
    9. Christine Jolls & Cass R. Sunstein, 2006. "Debiasing through Law," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 199-242, January.
    10. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    11. Fehr, Dietmar, 2018. "Is increasing inequality harmful? Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 123-134.
    12. Simon G�chter & Arno Riedl, "undated". "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining," IEW - Working Papers 113, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    13. Mounir Karadja & Johanna Mollerstrom & David Seim, 2017. "Richer (and Holier) Than Thou? The Effect of Relative Income Improvements on Demand for Redistribution," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 201-212, May.
    14. 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.
    15. James Konow, 2009. "Is fairness in the eye of the beholder? An impartial spectator analysis of justice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 33(1), pages 101-127, June.
    16. 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.
    17. Francesca Gino & Michael I. Norton & Roberto A. Weber, 2016. "Motivated Bayesians: Feeling Moral While Acting Egoistically," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 189-212, Summer.
    18. Deffains, Bruno & Espinosa, Romain & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Political self-serving bias and redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 67-74.
    19. Simon Gächter & Arno Riedl, 2005. "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining with Infeasible Claims," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 249-263, February.
    20. 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.
    21. Eisenkopf, Gerald & Fischbacher, Urs & Föllmi-Heusi, Franziska, 2013. "Unequal opportunities and distributive justice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 51-61.
    22. Großer, Jens & Reuben, Ernesto, 2013. "Redistribution and market efficiency: An experimental study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 39-52.
    23. Edward C. Norton & Hua Wang & Chunrong Ai, 2004. "Computing interaction effects and standard errors in logit and probit models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 4(2), pages 154-167, June.
    24. Gerber, Anke & Nicklisch, Andreas & Voigt, Stefan, 2019. "The role of ignorance in the emergence of redistribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 239-261.
    25. Spiekermann, Kai & Weiss, Arne, 2016. "Objective and subjective compliance: A norm-based explanation of ‘moral wiggle room’," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 170-183.
    26. Emin Karagözoğlu & Arno Riedl, 2015. "Performance Information, Production Uncertainty, and Subjective Entitlements in Bargaining," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2611-2626, November.
    27. David Bjerk, 2016. "In front of and behind the veil of ignorance: an analysis of motivations for redistribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 791-824, December.
    28. Babcock, Linda, et al, 1995. "Biased Judgments of Fairness in Bargaining," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1337-1343, December.
    29. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    30. Tyran, Jean-Robert & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2006. "A little fairness may induce a lot of redistribution in democracy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 469-485, February.
    31. Ismael Rodriguez-Lara & Luis Moreno-Garrido, 2012. "Self-interest and fairness: self-serving choices of justice principles," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 158-175, March.
    32. Wolfgang J. Luhan & Odile Poulsen & Michael W. M. Roos, 2019. "Money or morality: fairness ideals in unstructured bargaining," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(4), pages 655-675, December.
    33. Frohlich, Norman & Oppenheimer, Joe A., 1990. "Choosing Justice in Experimental Democracies with Production," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 461-477, June.
    34. Kittel, Bernhard & Kanitsar, Georg & Traub, Stefan, 2017. "Knowledge, power, and self-interest," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 39-52.
    35. Mitesh Kataria & Natalia Montinari, 2012. "Risk, Entitlements and Fairness Bias: Explaining Preferences for Redistribution in Multi-person Setting," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-061, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    36. Lucy F. Ackert & Jorge Martinez‐Vazquez & Mark Rider, 2007. "Social Preferences And Tax Policy Design: Some Experimental Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(3), pages 487-501, July.
    37. Croson, Rachel & Konow, James, 2009. "Social preferences and moral biases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 201-212, March.
    38. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    39. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2002. "The Inheritance of Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    40. Nisvan Erkal & Lata Gangadharan & Nikos Nikiforakis, 2011. "Relative Earnings and Giving in a Real-Effort Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3330-3348, December.
    41. Klor, Esteban F. & Shayo, Moses, 2010. "Social identity and preferences over redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 269-278, April.
    42. Adam Bonica & Nolan McCarty & Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 2013. "Why Hasn't Democracy Slowed Rising Inequality?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 103-124, Summer.
    43. Lea Cassar & Arnd H. Klein, 2019. "A Matter of Perspective: How Failure Shapes Distributive Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5050-5064, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amasino, Dianna R. & Pace, Davide Domenico & van der Weele, Joël, 2023. "Self-serving bias in redistribution choices: Accounting for beliefs and norms," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. John Bone & Paolo Crosetto & John Hey & Carmen Pasca, 2021. "The Acceptability of Accountability," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 476-501, December.
    3. Andrea Fazio, 2021. "Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?," Working Papers in Public Economics 194, Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Roma.
    4. Hansson, Kajsa & Persson, Emil & Davidai, Shai & Tinghög, Gustav, 2021. "Losing sense of fairness: How information about a level playing field reduces selfish behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 66-75.

    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. Deffains, Bruno & Espinosa, Romain & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Political self-serving bias and redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 67-74.
    2. Karagozoglu, Emin & Riedl, Arno, 2010. "Information, Uncertainty, and Subjective Entitlements in Bargaining," IZA Discussion Papers 5079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 876-901, June.
    4. Tausch, Franziska & Potters, Jan & Riedl, Arno, 2013. "Preferences for redistribution and pensions. What can we learn from experiments?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 298-325, July.
    5. Amasino, Dianna R. & Pace, Davide Domenico & van der Weele, Joël, 2023. "Self-serving bias in redistribution choices: Accounting for beliefs and norms," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    6. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:4:p:932-949 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Dorin, Camille & Hainguerlot, Marine & Huber-Yahi, Hélène & Vergnaud, Jean-Christophe & de Gardelle, Vincent, 2021. "How economic success shapes redistribution: The role of self-serving beliefs, in-group bias and justice principles," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 932-949, July.
    8. Cappelen, Alexander W. & de Haan, Thomas & Tungodden, Bertil, 2024. "Fairness and limited information: Are people Bayesian meritocrats?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    9. Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2016. "Equity and bargaining power in ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 144-165.
    10. Heinicke, Franziska & König-Kersting, Christian & Schmidt, Robert, 2022. "Injunctive vs. descriptive social norms and reference group dependence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 199-218.
    11. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    12. Höchtl, Wolfgang & Sausgruber, Rupert & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Inequality aversion and voting on redistribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1406-1421.
    13. Alexander Cappelen & Yiming Liu & Hedda Nielsen & Bertil Tungodden, 2024. "Fairness in a Society of Unequal Opportunities," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 506, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    14. Michele Bernasconi & Enrico Longo & Valeria Maggian, 2023. "When merit breeds luck (or not): an experimental study on distributive justice," Working Papers 2023:02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    15. Elena Cettolin & Arno Riedl, 2017. "Justice Under Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3739-3759, November.
    16. Konow, James & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Akai, Kenju, 2020. "Equity versus equality: Spectators, stakeholders and groups," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Sophie Harnay & Elisabeth Tovar, 2017. "Obeying vs. resisting unfair laws. A structural analysis of the internalization of collective preferences on redistribution using classification trees and random forests," EconomiX Working Papers 2017-34, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    18. Gantner, Anita & Horn, Kristian & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2016. "Fair and efficient division through unanimity bargaining when claims are subjective," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 56-73.
    19. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2018. "Cognitive ability and in-group bias: An experimental study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 280-292.
    20. Fabio Galeotti & Reuben Kline & Raimondello Orsini, 2014. "When Foul Play Seems Fair: Dishonesty as a Response to Violations of Just Deserts," Post-Print halshs-02467507, HAL.
    21. Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rilke, Rainer Michael & Walkowitz, Gari, 2013. "Self-Serving Use of Equity Rules in Bargaining with Asymmetric Outside Options," IZA Discussion Papers 7625, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    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:spr:sochwe:v:55:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s00355-020-01265-z. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.