Experiments in Inequality, Fairness, and Redistribution

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How does economic inequality influence political behavior? Why do some people support higher levels of redistribution than others? And what do we actually measure with our support for redistribution indicators? This panel addresses these current debates on the politics of inequality and redistribution in advanced democracies with the use of experimental methods. The papers build on aspects related to perceptions and the local environment, the relative importance of material self-interest and other-regarding concerns, fairness views and differences in how people respond to questions of fairness, institutional responses to different fairness views, and methodological aspects related to survey measurements. Survey and interactive online experiments help us to assess the effects of these related aspects empirically and to respond to issues of causality. In an era where rising economic inequality constituted one of the key challenge that societies face, a better understanding of these dynamics bears the potential to re-evaluate the institutions that contribute to a more equal distribution of income.

Sub Unit

• Division 51: Experimental Research

Individual Presentations

• How Exposure to Local Inequality Shapes Political Efficacy and Participation? - Kris-Stella Trump, University of Memphis; Melissa Sands, London School of Economics

• Fairness Across the World: Preferences and Beliefs - ALEXANDER CAPPELEN, Norwegian School of Economics

• Fairness, Risk and the Welfare State - Verena Rebecca Fetscher, University of Hamburg; David Rueda, University of Oxford

• Does Support for Redistribution Mean What We Think It Means? - Shir Raviv, Tel Aviv University; Yotam Margalit, Tel Aviv University

Chair

• Isabela Mares Yale University

Discussants

• Charlotte Cavaille University of Michigan, Ford School of Public Policy

• Elias Dinas European University Institute