IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cty/dpaper/10-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Diverse societal beliefs and redistributive policies, but equal welfare: The trade-off effect of information

Author

Listed:
  • Gabrieli, T.

Abstract

Large empirical evidence shows that the difference in the political support for redistribution appears to reflect a difference in the social perceptions regarding the determinants of individual wealth and the underlying sources of income inequality. This paper presents a model of beliefs and redistribution which explains this evidence through multiple politico-economic equilibria. Differently from the recent literature which obtains multiple equilibria by modeling agents characterized by psychological biases, my model is based on standard assumptions. Multiple equilibria originate from multiple optimal levels of information for the society. Multiple optimal levels of information exist because increasing the informativeness of an economy produces a trade-off between a decrease in adverse selection and an increase in moral hazard. The framework allows to analyze various comparative statics in order to answer to policy questions.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabrieli, T., 2010. "Diverse societal beliefs and redistributive policies, but equal welfare: The trade-off effect of information," Working Papers 10/04, Department of Economics, City University London.
    • Handle: RePEc:cty:dpaper:10/04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/1488/1/Diverse_Societal_Beliefs_and_Redistributive_Policies.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Corneo, Giacomo & Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. "Individual preferences for political redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 83-107, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    5. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    7. Suhrcke, Marc, 2001. "Preferences for Inequality: East vs. West," Discussion Paper Series 26369, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    8. Roland Bénabou, 1996. "Inequality and Growth," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 11-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    10. Gabrieli, Tommaso, 2007. "Beliefs And Redistributive Politics Under Incomplete Information," Economic Research Papers 269770, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Fong, Christina, 2001. "Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 225-246, November.
    15. Roberto Perotti, 1993. "Political Equilibrium, Income Distribution, and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 755-776.
    16. Romer, Thomas, 1975. "Individual welfare, majority voting, and the properties of a linear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 163-185, February.
    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. Tommaso Gabrieli, 2016. "Spatial Segregation, Redistribution and Welfare: A Theoretical Model," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(1), pages 68-78.

    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. 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.
    2. Corneo, Giacomo & Neher, Frank, 2015. "Democratic redistribution and rule of the majority," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 96-109.
    3. Gabrieli, Tommaso, 2012. "Inequality, Intergenerational Mobility and Redistributive Policies under Endogenous Information," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 23-49.
    4. 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.
    5. Pfarr, Christian, 2012. "Meltzer-Richard and social mobility hypothesis: revisiting the income-redistribution nexus using German choice data," MPRA Paper 43325, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Alesina, Alberto & Giuliano, Paola, 2009. "Preferences for Redistribution," IZA Discussion Papers 4056, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Joan Esteban & Laurence Kranich, 2003. "The Social Contracts with Endogenous Sentiments," Working Papers 71, Barcelona School of Economics.
    8. Kerr, William R., 2014. "Income inequality and social preferences for redistribution and compensation differentials," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 62-78.
    9. Elvire Guillaud, 2008. "Preferences for redistribution: a European comparative analysis," Working Papers halshs-00586260, HAL.
    10. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    11. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for redistribution around the world," Discussion Papers 2012/2, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    12. 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).
    13. Andreas Georgiadis & Alan Manning, 2012. "Spend it like Beckham? Inequality and redistribution in the UK, 1983–2004," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 537-563, June.
    14. Matteo Cervellati & Joan-Maria Esteban & Laurence Kranich, 2010. "Work Values, Endogenous Sentiments and Redistribution," Working Papers 434, Barcelona School of Economics.
    15. Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "Experienced inequality and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 251-262.
    16. Neustadt, Ilja & Zweifel, Peter, 2010. "Is the Welfare State Sustainable? Experimental Evidence on Citizens' Preferences for Redistribution," MPRA Paper 22233, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Cervellati, Matteo & Esteban, Joan & Kranich, Laurence, 2010. "Work values, endogenous sentiments redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 612-627, October.
    18. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Joan Esteban, 2007. "Redistributive Taxation and Public Expenditures," Economics Series Working Papers 366, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    19. 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.
    20. Cojocaru, Alexandru & Diagne, Mame Fatou, 2014. "Should income inequality be reduced and who should benefit ? redistributive preferences in Europe and Central Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7097, The World Bank.

    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:cty:dpaper:10/04. 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: Research Publications Librarian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decituk.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.