Why are relatively poor people not more supportive of redistribution? Evidence from a survey experiment across 10 countries

Christopher Hoy and Franziska Mager ()
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Franziska Mager: Oxfam Great Britain

No 489, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: We test a key assumption of conventional theories about preferences for redistribution, which is that relatively poor people should be the most in favor of redistribution. We conduct a randomized survey experiment with over 30,000 participants across 10 countries, half of whom are informed of their position in the national income distribution. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, people who are told they are relatively poorer than they thought are less concerned about inequality and are not more supportive of redistribution. This finding is driven by people using their own living standard as a "benchmark" for what they consider acceptable for others.

Keywords: Inequality; social mobility; redistribution; political economy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 D72 D83 H23 O50 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2019-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2019-489

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