HPS³ - David Rueda - Crime or Redistribution: Fairness, Effort, and PreferencesWe welcome David Rueda (University of Oxford) on July 5 2023

5 July 2023

The Hamburg Political Science Seminar Series (HPS³) features international speakers presenting cutting-edge research in empirical political science and political economy.

We welcome on July 5 2023, 17:15-18:45 CET in VMP9 S27 & via Zoom

David Rueda (University of Oxford) 
Title: Crime or Redistribution: Fairness, Effort, and Preferences (Noah Bacine and David Rueda)

Abstract:

An expansive body of experimental literature has documented the relevance of endowment source in the formation of preferences for redistribution. Prior results and their theoretical underpinnings suggest that individuals are more tolerant of inequality when it arises through meritocracy rather than luck. However, all prior research on this topic has only examined situations in which participant experience is symmetrical: i.e. cases in which all parties either earned or were given their income, or in which all parties have both earned and unearned income (even when they are individually exposed to the risk of losing some of the earned income). Instead, we study preferences over redistribution in a situation in which some individuals earn their income through effort and time while others receive their income purely through luck using an approach that is salient to both groups. We propose a novel design that allows us to better capture the role that the "fairness" of the system plays in determining redistributive preferences by studying a more realistic environment in which method of earnings vary across individuals rather than environments. In the second stage of our experiment, we deepen our investigation of the interaction between beliefs about "fairness" and redistribution by giving low income participants the opportunity to steal from their wealthy counterparts after learning the level of redistribution. Simultaneously, wealthy participants must decide whether and how much to invest in policing to prevent the possibility of being robbed.

Keywords: Inequality, redistribution, crime, policing

 Please find the preliminary program on the HPS³ Website.

 We invite everyone interested to attend and are looking forward to seeing you.