Public Perceptions of Fairness in the Allocation of Resources

• In Event: Distributive Politics, Inequality, and Representation in Urban Politics

Abstract

Recent research shows that governors prioritize relative equality by geographic units (e.g. counties) when distributing resources. Doing so means that more heavily populated areas get less per capita. Whether this comports with the public’s perceptions of fairness, and whether members of the public also prioritize political subunits is unclear. In this paper we investigate how the public views fairness and leaders’ priorities in the distribution of public resources. We use survey experiments to compare methods that prioritize political sub-units to those that prioritize per-person proportionality. We also assess whether urban residents who tend to get more under the latter method have different views than rural residents who tend to get more under the former approaches.

Authors

• David Glick, Boston University

• Maxwell B. Palmer, Boston University