How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

Ilyana Kuziemko,Emmanuel Saez,Stefanie Stantcheva,Michael I Norton

doi:10.1257/aer.20130360

Abstract

We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on US income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only slightly moves tax and transfer policy preferences. An exception is the estate tax—informing respondents of the small share of decedents who pay it doubles support for it. The small effects for all other policies can be partially explained by respondents' low trust in government and a disconnect between concerns about social issues and the public policies meant to address them. (JEL D31, D72, H23, H24)

Highlights

Over the past several decades, the US has witnessed a large increase in income concentration
We find that our treatment induces individuals to state they will send an email to their U.S Senator in favor of maintaining the estate tax, though we note that we are unable to verify that emails were sent
A second goal of this paper is to describe in detail the data-gathering process on Mechanical Turk (mTurk), to serve as a guide for future research in public economics using this platform

Summary

Introduction

Over the past several decades, the US has witnessed a large increase in income concentration. The median-voter theorem predicts that an increase in the demand for redistribution would accompany this rise in income concentration (Meltzer and Richard, 1981). The General Social Survey shows there has been a slight decrease in stated support for redistribution in the US since the 1970s, even among those who self-identify as having below-average income (see Figure 1). These trends have led commenters to suggest that Americans do not care about rising inequality.. These trends have led commenters to suggest that Americans do not care about rising inequality. An alternative explanation is that Americans are unaware of the extent or growth of inequality (see Kluegel and Smith, 1986 and Ariely and Norton, 2011), that this information is not sufficiently salient, or that they are skeptical about the government’s ability to redistribute effectively

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