Assessing Individual and Group Differences in the Sense of Justice: Framework and Application to Gender Differences in the Justice of Earnings

Abstract

This paper develops a framework for assessing interindividual and intergroup differences in the sense of justice. The framework enables estimation of all the justice quantities of interest - the principles of microjustice and macrojustice, the style of expression, and the firmness with which the principles of microjustice are held - as well as statistical testing for cross-individual and cross-group differences. To illustrate the framework, the paper investigates gender differences in the principles of justice with respect to earnings. Using data collected by Rossi′s factorial-survey method, we obtain respondent-specific estimates of (i) three principles of microjustice - the just base wage, the just rate of return to schooling, and the just gender multiplier-and the certitude with which they are held; and (ii) the principles of macrojustice - represented by seven measures of inequality. To assess gender differences in each of these eleven elements, we estimate a variety of models, utilizing ordinary least-squares estimators and, to correct for possible heteroskedasticity and endogeneity, generalized least-squares and two-stage/least-squares estimators; for the three estimated principles of microjustice, we also carry out hierarchical empirical-Bayes analyses.