IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-03393021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Preferences for Redistribution and Perception of Fairness: an Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Ruben Durante

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications - ECO ENS-PSL - Département d'économie de l'ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)

  • Louis Putterman
  • Joël van Der Weele

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 pretax 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël van Der Weele, 2014. "Preferences for Redistribution and Perception of Fairness: an Experimental Study," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393021, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03393021
    DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Dirk Engelmann & Martin Strobel, 2004. "Inequality Aversion, Efficiency, and Maximin Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 857-869, September.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. John H. Beck, 1994. "An Experimental Test of Preferences for the Distribution of Income and Individual Risk Aversion," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 131-145, Spring.
    6. Andreoni, James & Miller, John H., 2008. "Analyzing Choice with Revealed Preference: Is Altruism Rational?," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 54, pages 481-487, Elsevier.
    7. 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.
    8. Fong, Christina M. & Luttmer, Erzo F.P., 2011. "Do fairness and race matter in generosity? Evidence from a nationally representative charity experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 372-394, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Milanovic, Branko, 2000. "The median-voter hypothesis, income inequality, and income redistribution: an empirical test with the required data," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 367-410, September.
    11. Olof Johansson-Stenman & Fredrik Carlsson & Dinky Daruvala, 2002. "Measuring Future Grandparents" Preferences for Equality and Relative Standing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 362-383, April.
    12. Krawczyk, Michal, 2010. "A glimpse through the veil of ignorance: Equality of opportunity and support for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 131-141, February.
    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. 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.
    2. Clark, Andrew E. & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2014. "Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. 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).
    4. Sergio Beraldo & Massimiliano Piacenza & Gilberto Turati, 2014. "«Must Reward Hard Work»? An Experiment on Personal Responsibility and Preferences for Redistribution," CSEF Working Papers 377, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. Gilles Le Garrec, 2023. "Accounting for the long-term stability of the welfare-state regimes in a model with distributive preferences and social norms," Working Papers hal-03954024, HAL.
    6. Pedro Rey-Biel & Roman M. Sheremeta & Neslihan Uler, 2011. "(Bad) Luck or (Lack of) Effort?: Comparing Social Sharing Norms between US and Europe," Working Papers 11-11, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Joshua Chen-Yuan Teng & Joseph Tao-yi Wang & C. C. Yang, 2020. "Justice, what money can buy: a lab experiment on primary social goods and the Rawlsian difference principle," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 45-69, March.
    8. Alexander W. Cappelen & James Konow & Erik ?. S?rensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2013. "Just Luck: An Experimental Study of Risk-Taking and Fairness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1398-1413, June.
    9. Höchtl, Wolfgang & Sausgruber, Rupert & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Inequality aversion and voting on redistribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1406-1421.
    10. Cetre, Sophie & Lobeck, Max & Senik, Claudia & Verdier, Thierry, 2019. "Preferences over income distribution: Evidence from a choice experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Emin Karagözoglu & Arno Riedl, 2010. "Information, Uncertainty, and Subjective Entitlements in Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 3133, CESifo.
    12. Mollerstrom, Johanna & Reme, Bjørn-Atle & Sørensen, Erik Ø., 2015. "Luck, choice and responsibility — An experimental study of fairness views," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 33-40.
    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. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert & Traub, Stefan, 2014. "Social preferences and voting on reform: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 36-55.
    15. Gilles Le Garrec, 2023. "Accounting for the long-term stability of the welfare-state regimes in a model with distributive preferences and social norms," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03954024, HAL.
    16. 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.
    17. Sophie Cetre & Max Lobeck & Claudia Senik & Thierry Verdier, 2018. "In search of unanimously preferred income distributions. Evidence from a choice experiment," SciencePo Working papers Main halshs-01863359, HAL.
    18. Laura K. Gee & Marco Migueis & Sahar Parsa, 2017. "Redistributive choices and increasing income inequality: experimental evidence for income as a signal of deservingness," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 894-923, December.
    19. 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".
    20. Akbaş, Merve & Ariely, Dan & Yuksel, Sevgi, 2019. "When is inequality fair? An experiment on the effect of procedural justice and agency," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 114-127.

    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:hal:spmain:hal-03393021. 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: Contact - Sciences Po Departement of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.