Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution

Marcel Preuss, Germán Reyes, Jason Somerville and Joy Wu

No 10383, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We examine how people redistribute income when there is uncertainty about the role luck plays in determining opportunities and outcomes. We elicit redistribution decisions from a U.S.-representative sample who observe worker outcomes and whether luck magnified workers’ effort (“lucky opportunities”) or determined workers’ income directly (“lucky outcomes”). We find that participants redistribute less and are less reactive to changes in the importance of luck in environments with lucky opportunities. Our findings have implications for models that seek to understand and predict redistribution attitudes, and help to explain the gap between lab evidence on support for redistribution and U.S. inequality trends.

Keywords: inequality of opportunity; fairness; luck; perceptions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution (2024)
Working Paper: Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution (2024)
Working Paper: Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution (2023)
Working Paper: Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10383

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