This paper examines how perceived importance of family background affect distributional pref-erences using two large-scale survey experiments. In the first experiment, we randomly inform respondents about the relationship between parental income and economic success later in life, which renders...

This paper presents an experimental analysis of 2x2 coordination games in which player 1 earns a substantially higher payoff than player 2 except in the inefficient equilibrium where they earn the same payoffs. The main focus is on the comparison of two treatments with and without the ex post...

Meritocratic beliefs are often invoked as justification of inequality. We provide evidence on how meritocratic beliefs are shaped by economic status and how they contribute to the moral justification of inequality. In a large-scale survey experiment in the US, we show that success causes a...

This paper provides a comparative experimental study of risky prospects (lotteries) and income distributions. The experimental design consisted of multi-outcome lotteries and n-dimensional income distributions arranged in the shapes of ten distributions which were judged in terms of ratings and...

This article presents a novel explanation why demand for redistribution on average does not respond to information on low intergenerational mobility. Building on insights from behavioral economics, we expect that incentives to update perceptions of intergenerational mobility change along the...

This article presents a novel explanation why demand for redistribution on average does not respond to information on low intergenerational mobility. Building on insights from behavioral economics, we expect that incentives to update perceptions of intergenerational mobility change along the...

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how demand for redistribution of income depends on self-interest, insurance motives, and social concerns relating to inequality and efficiency. Our choice environments feature large groups of subjects and real world framing, and differ with respect to...

We review the survey and experimental findings in the literature on attitudes to income inequality. We interpret the latter as any disparity in incomes between individuals. We classify these findings into two broad types of individual attitudes towards the income distribution in a society: the...

In an online experiment, we exploit the existing disparities in socio-economic status within an Italian city, to study how these differences correlate with preferences in strategic and non-strategic situations. Our findings indicate that participants living in an area characterized by a high...

Are differences in preferences for redistribution between right and left wing voters amplified because of misperceptions of inequality? To answer this question, we conduct a nationally representative, randomized survey experiment of 2,584 Australians in which respondents either received...