Internally funded project
Start date : 01.08.2021
Attitudes towards redistribution are shaped by the perceived fairness of the underlying sources of inequality. Recent work on preferences for redistribution has focused on the distinction between attitudes towards inequality that is driven by merit and inequality that is due to luck. This work complements this line of research by examining attitudes towards taste-based inequality, i.e., inequality generated by an autonomous decision of one party to pass a gift to another, based on the personal taste of the former, as in donations and inheritance-related decisions. Our experimental setup is based on the impartial spectator design in which non-stakeholders make redistribution choices with real monetary consequences. We compare redistribution across treatments that differ in whether the source of inequality is luck, merit, or taste. Aggregate results suggest that taste-based and luck-based inequality are both perceived as relatively unfair by participants, as reflected by the observation of high levels of redistribution. Merit-based inequality leads to lower levels of redistribution, which reflects its perception as a relatively fair source of inequality. Heterogeneity analysis, however, hints towards stark differences in attitudes towards taste-based inequality between high-income individuals and the rest of the sample: The rich treat it as fair, similar to the manner in which they treat merit-based inequality, while the average-low income group treat it as unfair, similar to their treatment of inequality due to luck. We suggest that high-income individuals identify with the person who earned the money and passed it over, while average-low income individuals may put more weight on those who ended up in the unequal position.