Long absence from this blog ends now with a post about how experiencing income inequality when growing up affects one’s preferences for income redistribution policies

The Fall semester has proved to be busier than I thought it would be. However, I really do want to come back to this blog, and a paper about inequality I encountered today gave me the push I needed.

The paper is Experienced inequality and preferences for redistribution by Cristopher Roth and Johannes Wohlfart, Journal of Public Economics 167 (2018) 251-262.

The authors use large national datasets to examine the following question: if someone experienced higher inequality when growing up, will they be more or less in favor of redistribution?

Their answer surprised me. Quoting from the abstract of the paper:

people who have experienced higher inequality during their lives are less in favor of redistribution, after controlling for income, demo- graphics, unemployment experiences and current macroeconomic conditions. They are also less likely to support left-wing parties and to consider the prevailing distribution of incomes to be unfair. We provide evidence that these findings do not operate through extrapolation from own circumstances, perceived relative income or trust in the political system, but seem to operate through the respondents’ fairness views.

(Roth and Wohlfart 2018, abstract)

People who grew up experiencing higher inequality demand less redistribution? Of course that is fine if you think of those in the top of the distribution, but the way inequality has developed in a skewed manner in most countries, the majority of the people should be in a less advantageous position and might be expected to have a desire for redistribution policy to reduce the inequality. But they don’t! The authors offer this potential explanation:

One plausible interpretation of these findings is that growing up under an unequal income distribution alters people’s perception of what is a fair division of resources, and thereby reduces their demand for redistribution.

(Roth and Wohlfart 2018, Page 252)

This is like thinking of slaves becoming used to the chains and eventually fond of them. I want to absorb the message of this paper more deeply, at least for my forthcoming class on economic inequality in the Spring 2019 semester, and if I have further thoughts to share on this blog, I will do so.