This paper studies differences in inequality perceptions, distributional norms, and redistributive preferences between East and West Germany. As expected, there are substantial differences with respect to all three of these measures. Surprisingly, however, differences in distributional norms are...

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...

This paper describes and analyses current poverty and income distribution in South Africa, with a central concern the relationship between poverty, inequality and growth. The paper also investigates patterns of and trends in poverty and income distribution, a literature with a long and...

In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern, a vicious cycle could form...

This paper provides unprecedented direct evidence from large-scale survey data on both the intensity (how much?) and direction (to whom?) of income comparisons. Income comparisons are considered to be at least somewhat important by three-quarters of Europeans. They are associated with both lower...

This study provides new evidence on top income shares in Germany from the period of industrialization to the present. Income concentration was high in the nineteenth century, dropped sharply after World War I and during the hyperinflation years of the 1920s, and increased rapidly throughout the...

This paper presents a simple conceptual framework specifically tailored to measure individual perceptions of wage inequality. Using internationally comparable survey data, the empirical part of the paper documents that there is huge variation in inequality perceptions both across and within...

In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern, a vicious cycle could form...

This paper shows that higher levels of perceived wage inequality are associated with a weaker (stronger) belief into meritocratic (non-meritocratic) principles as being important in determining individual wages. This finding is robust to the use of an instrumental-variable estimation strategy...

We examine the extent to which declining manufacturing employment may havecontributed to increasing inequality in advanced economies. This contribution is typicallysmall, except in the United States. We explore two possible explanations: the high initialmanufacturing wage premium and the high...