Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Four experiments examine how lack of awareness of inequality affect behaviour towards the rich and poor. In Experiment 1, participants who became aware that wealthy individuals donated a smaller percentage of their income switched from rewar...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133343 |
| _version_ | 1826194234723532800 |
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| author | HAUSER, OLIVER P KRAFT-TODD, GORDON T RAND, DAVID G NOWAK, MARTIN A NORTON, MICHAEL I |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management HAUSER, OLIVER P KRAFT-TODD, GORDON T RAND, DAVID G NOWAK, MARTIN A NORTON, MICHAEL I |
| author_sort | HAUSER, OLIVER P |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Four experiments examine how lack of awareness of inequality affect behaviour towards the rich and poor. In Experiment 1, participants who became aware that wealthy individuals donated a smaller percentage of their income switched from rewarding the wealthy to rewarding the poor. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants who played a public goods game – and were assigned incomes reflective of the US income distribution either at random or on merit – punished the poor (for small absolute contributions) and rewarded the rich (for large absolute contributions) when incomes were unknown; when incomes were revealed, participants punished the rich (for their low percentage of income contributed) and rewarded the poor (for their high percentage of income contributed). In Experiment 4, participants provided with public education contributions for five New York school districts levied additional taxes on mostly poorer school districts when incomes were unknown, but targeted wealthier districts when incomes were revealed. These results shed light on how income transparency shapes preferences for equity and redistribution. We discuss implications for policy-makers.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:52:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/133343 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:52:59Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1333432023-12-22T21:02:32Z Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich HAUSER, OLIVER P KRAFT-TODD, GORDON T RAND, DAVID G NOWAK, MARTIN A NORTON, MICHAEL I Sloan School of Management <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Four experiments examine how lack of awareness of inequality affect behaviour towards the rich and poor. In Experiment 1, participants who became aware that wealthy individuals donated a smaller percentage of their income switched from rewarding the wealthy to rewarding the poor. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants who played a public goods game – and were assigned incomes reflective of the US income distribution either at random or on merit – punished the poor (for small absolute contributions) and rewarded the rich (for large absolute contributions) when incomes were unknown; when incomes were revealed, participants punished the rich (for their low percentage of income contributed) and rewarded the poor (for their high percentage of income contributed). In Experiment 4, participants provided with public education contributions for five New York school districts levied additional taxes on mostly poorer school districts when incomes were unknown, but targeted wealthier districts when incomes were revealed. These results shed light on how income transparency shapes preferences for equity and redistribution. We discuss implications for policy-makers.</jats:p> 2021-10-27T19:52:14Z 2021-10-27T19:52:14Z 2019 2021-04-14T13:58:58Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133343 en 10.1017/BPP.2019.4 Behavioural Public Policy Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Cambridge University Press (CUP) SSRN |
| spellingShingle | HAUSER, OLIVER P KRAFT-TODD, GORDON T RAND, DAVID G NOWAK, MARTIN A NORTON, MICHAEL I Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| title | Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| title_full | Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| title_fullStr | Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| title_full_unstemmed | Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| title_short | Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| title_sort | invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133343 |
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