Support for redistribution depends on whether inequality stems from differences in performance or luck, but different sources of luck may impact redistribution differentially. We elicit redistribution decisions from a U.S.-representative sample who observe worker earnings and whether luck...

We investigate the effects of inequality in wealth on the incentives to contribute to a public good when agents are inequity averse and may differ in ability. We show that equality may lead to a reduction of public good provision below levels generated by purely selfish agents. But introducing...

A growing literature has tried to measure the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to acquire income. At the same time, policy makers have doubled down on efforts to go beyond income when measuring well- being. We attempt to bridge these two areas by measuring the extent to which...

Can inequality in rewards result in an erosion in broad-based support for meritocratic norms? We hypothesize that unequal rewards between the successful and the rest, drives a cognitive gap in their meritocratic beliefs, and hence their social preferences for redistribution. Two separate...

Few skilled workers in the UK have flexible working time - GPs are the exception - most can only choose between unemployment, or full-time work, which has changed little in recent years, while part time work is mainly unskilled. This market rigidity imposes major welfare losses, in contrast to...

The Gini coefficient features prominently in Amartya Sen's 1973 and 1997 seminal work on income inequality and social welfare. We construct the Gini coefficient from socialpsychological building blocks, reformulating it as a ratio between a measure of social stress and aggregate income. We...

A long-standing challenge for welfare economics is to develop welfare criteria that can be applied to allocations with different population levels. Such a criterion is essential to resolve the optimal population problem, i.e., the tradeoff between population size and the welfare of each person...

Many countries consider rising fertility through pro-family policies as a solution to the fiscal pressure stemming from longevity. However, an increased number of births implies immediate private costs and only delayed public benefits of younger and larger population. We propose using an...