Causes Of Wealth Research Articles

The mediating role of attributions of poverty and wealth in the relationship between perceptions of economic inequality and redistribution preferences

ABSTRACT Previous research has identified that the relationship between perceived economic inequality and supporting redistribution is mediated by beliefs about what causes poverty. Despite its usefulness, this approach has failed to recognize the role of perceived causes of wealth in explaining the relationship between these two variables. We conducted correlational (N = 523) and experimental (N = 226) studies, demonstrating that in contexts with high inequality, attributing poverty and wealth primarily to external factors resulted in greater support for redistribution. Furthermore, the attributions that served as mediators varied depending on the proposed redistributive measure. We delve into the significance of wealth attributional processes in understanding attitudes toward redistribution.

When fairness is not enough: The disproportionate contributions of the poor in a collective action problem.

Many of our most pressing challenges, from combating climate change to dealing with pandemics, are collective action problems: situations in which individual and collective interests conflict with each other. In such situations, people face a dilemma about making individually costly but collectively beneficial contributions to the common good. Understanding which factors influence people's willingness to make these contributions is vital for the design of policies and institutions that support the attainment of collective goals. In this study, we investigate how inequalities, and different causes of inequalities, impact individual-level behavior and group-level outcomes. First, we find that what people judged to be fair was not enough to solve the collective action problem: if they acted according to what they thought was fair, they would collectively fail. Second, the level of wealth (rich vs. poor) altered what was judged to be a fair contribution to the public good more than the cause of wealth (merit vs. luck vs. uncertain). Contributions during the game reflected these fairness judgments, with poorer individuals consistently contributing a higher proportion of their wealth than richer participants, which further increased inequality-particularly in successful groups. Finally, the cause of one's wealth was largely irrelevant, mattering most only when it was uncertain, as opposed to resulting from merit or luck. We discuss implications for policymakers and international climate change negotiations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Circuit in the History of Economic Thought: The Contribution of Ibn Khaldûn

In this tribute to Alain Parguez (1940–2022), I draw attention to the economic thought of the prominent medieval scholar, Ibn Khaldûn (1332–1406), specifically his seminal Al Muqaddimah (1377), which was the introduction (“Prolegomena”) to his universal history (Kitab al Ibar, “Book of Lessons”). While caution should be taken in reading a six-hundred-year-old book, I try to show that Ibn Khaldûn could be considered as a forerunner of the Theory of the Monetary Circuit. In his magnum opus, he attempted to lay down the factors that had pushed civilizations (especially the Arab-Muslim one) to bloom to their peak and to decline thereafter. This led him to examine the economic and social processes governing the history and the causes of wealth. Here Ibn Khaldûn anticipated some economic mechanisms which form the core of the Theory of the Monetary Circuit.

Perceptions of Inequality as a Factor of Investments in Human Capital (an empirical analysis)

The article presents the results of the empirical analysis of the relationship between the Russians' perceptions of inequality and their behavior in relation to investments in human capital. Empirical analysis of such a relation is based on the RLMS HSE data. The investments in human capital are operationalized by the expenditures for adult education, and the perceptions of inequality are measured by the subjective degree of fairness of access to higher education, and also by subjective factors of poverty and well-being that population finds most important in contemporary Russian society. The results of the analysis demonstrate that perceptions of inequality held among the population affect their behavior in relation to the adult’s human capital. The population's perception of access to higher education as fair, and the reasons for wealth as meritocratic, leads to a greater propensity to invest in the adults’ human capital. The perception of the causes of wealth as related to the specific parental family support or the institutional environment, which does not meet the principles of equality of opportunity, on the contrary, has a disincentive effect on investment in adult Russians human capital; understanding poverty as a consequence of the current institutional environment specifics in the country works in a similar way. The obtained results demonstrate another consequence of the population's perception of inequality as non-meritocratic (quite typical for Russians in general), affecting the range of possibilities for the implementation of Russia's development vector based on human capital as its driver.

Nexus between corruption, market capitalization, exports, FDI, and country’s wealth: A pre-global financial crisis study

The study investigates the impact of corruption, market capitalization, exports, and foreign direct investment on the wealth of 178 countries worldwide. Thus, the paper uses univariate and multivariate regressions to observe the nexus among exports, foreign direct investment, market capitalization, corruption, and wealth of nations. The findings indicate that corruption poses a significant hindrance to prosperity and development, as evaluated with respect to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Additionally, the results showed that the world’s poorest nations are becoming less corrupt while the wealthiest ones are growing more corrupt. The paper also concludes that exports and market capitalization are critical for prosperity and development when combined with lower corruption levels. Furthermore, the analysis also suggests that inbound foreign direct investment favors the development of emerging countries. Surprisingly, market capitalization and exports had little impact on wealth of countries before the crisis period. Moreover, integrity also fosters economic growth. Overall, the study concludes that the causes of wealth are country-specific. AcknowledgmentsI thank the editor and the reviewers for the helpful comments and suggestions that significantly enhanced this work. The usual disclaimer applies.

The nature of the market: The roads from taking to trading

A Hobbesian society is modeled to study how the market emerges from violence. From a Cournot military contest for wealth, primitive markets emerge when Rousseau's Garden of Eden or an arms race is the equilibrium rather than war. Politically-dominated (e.g., socialist) or Smithian markets with a government results from war or an arms race. The study reveals the roads to diverse political-market systems (e.g., the market economy), explains the integrated political and economic nature of the market, and demonstrates the value of viewing violence as an industry. It enlightens issues such as the classic Hobbesian-Rousseau debate, the causes of wealth, and the Coasian bargain.

Dennis C. Rasmussen. The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought.

Dennis C. Rasmussen. <i>The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought</i>.

Material Heuristics and Attitudes Toward Redistribution

ABSTRACT According to the material-heuristics hypothesis, people’s socioeconomic position affects their perceptions about the socioeconomic environment, including how society distributes opportunities and rewards and to what extent people are responsible for their own economic situation. These perceptions, in turn, affect attitudes toward wealth redistribution. In contrast to the material-heuristics hypothesis are the more familiar material self-interest hypothesis, which relates redistributive attitudes to one’s personal interest in gaining or losing from redistribution; and the self-serving reasoning hypothesis, according to which perceptions of how society distributes opportunities and rewards are a consequence rather than a cause of attitudes toward redistribution, which are, in turn, driven by material self-interest. All three hypotheses connect socioeconomic position and attitudes toward redistribution, but only the material-heuristics and the self-serving reasoning arguments account for why perceptions of the causes of wealth and poverty vary across economic groups and why this variation matters for attitudes toward redistribution. Ignoring the role of such perceptions can lead to the simplistic attribution of attitudes toward redistribution to personal self-interest.

The causes of wealth and poverty in the assessments of men and women in Russia

The causes of wealth and poverty in the assessments of men and women in Russia

Common Dimensions for Poverty and Wealth Attributions

The theory of attributions has long been used to study people's explanations for the origin of poverty. Nevertheless, research on the perceived causes of wealth has thus far been sidelined and isolated from the study of poverty attributions. This article focuses on the relationship between poverty and wealth attributions from a latent variable measurement perspective. To examine this relationship, two basic attribution types were considered: internal (based on individual behavior) and external (based on socio-structural determinants). Answers to a 10- indicator scale from the Social Justice and Citizenship Participation survey were analyzed. The instrument was administered to a stratified cluster probability sample in Chile in 2013 (N = 1245). Based on prior evidence, a confirmatory factor model of internal and external poverty and wealth attributions was estimated (four factors). Based on it, a second-order two-factor model was estimated, one of internal and another of external attributions. For the first time results yield evidence of common attributions for poverty and wealth

Indigenous Belief in a Just World: New Zealand MMori and Other Ethnicities Compared

Survey evidence has revealed large differences in beliefs held by different cultures and ethnicities which may affect their economic prosperity. We study how the beliefs of New Zealand’s indigenous Māori about the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate differ from non-Māori using World Values Survey data from 1995 to 2011. Māori are more likely to believe that (1) the poor have been unfairly treated and are not lazy; (2) a better life is due to luck and not hard work; (3) the Government is doing too little for those in need; and (4) business should not be run solely by the owners, compared to non-Māori. We control for income, education and employment status, inter alia. The paper also compares differences between Māori and non-Māori within NZ to those between (non-indigenous) blacks and non-blacks within the US, as a benchmark. Stark results hold with respect to non-economic beliefs: whereas Māori are 8.6% more likely to believe that the environment should be given priority over economic growth compared to non-Māori, blacks are 20.5% less likely to hold this view compared to other Americans. Hence the evidence suggests that being indigenous plays a role in belief formation.

Los economistas políticos clásicos: pobreza y población. Algunos de sus teóricos relevantes

Las diferencias entre Adam Smith y Thomas Robert Malthus sobre la concepción de la pobreza, es el tema de este artículo. Dichas diferencias, además de ser teóricas, se materializan en la concepción de la política social. Smith mostró el poder del trabajo como causa de la riqueza, Malthus el poder de la pobreza como causa del trabajo. La característica básica de los pobres para Smith fue que eran trabajadores; para Malthus la característica del trabajador era su pobreza, ya que sin ella carecería de motivación para trabajar. Para Smith, la pobreza era relativa, ya que en su economía progresista los muy pobres llegarían a ser pobres y los menos pobres a vivir en una pobreza, cómoda, confortable. Para Malthus, la pobreza era absoluta: los pobres tendían a ser muy pobres y los muy pobres llegarían al hambre y hasta a la muerte.

Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics

International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate individuals' recurrent struggle with cognitive dissonance as they seek to maintain, and pass on to their children, a view of the world where effort ultimately pays off and everyone gets their just desserts. This paper offers a model that helps explain i) why most people feel such a need to believe in a “just world”; ii) why this need, and therefore the prevalence of the belief, varies considerably across countries; iii) the implications of this phenomenon for international differences in political ideology, levels of redistribution, labor supply, aggregate income, and popular perceptions of the poor. More generally, the paper develops a theory of collective beliefs and motivated cognitions, including those concerning “money” (consumption) and happiness, as well as religion.

Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics

International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate individuals' recurrent struggle with cognitive dissonance as they seek to maintain, and pass on to their children, a view of the world where effort ultimately pays off and everyone gets their deserts. This paper offers a model that helps explain: i) why most people feel such a need to believe in a just world; ii) why this need, and therefore the prevalence of the belief, varies considerably across countries; iii) the implications of this phenomenon for international differences in political ideology, levels of redistribution, labor supply, aggregate income, and popular perceptions of the poor. The model shows in particular how complementarities arise endogenously between individuals' desired beliefs or ideological choices, resulting in two equilibria. A first, American equilibrium is characterized by a high prevalence of just-world beliefs among the population and relatively laissez-faire policies. The other, European equilibrium is characterized by more pessimism about the role of effort in economic outcomes and a more extensive welfare state. More generally, the paper develops a theory of collective beliefs and motivated cognitions, including those concerning money (consumption) and happiness, as well as religion.

The Politicization of Growth Theory

In this essay I review the main features of neoclassical growth theory, with an eye to seeing what it has to say about the causes of wealth and poverty among nations. I argue that outside the OECD and a comparatively small circle of other countries, neoclassical models contribute little to identifying the deeper sources of cross-national patterns in growth and productivity. I then discuss recent advances in the empirical analysis of economic performance that feature the influence of politics, policy and institutional arrangements on entrepreneurship, innovation, investment and the efficiency with which factor inputs are transformed to output.

The Politicization of Growth Theory

In this essay I review the main features of neoclassical growth theory, with an eye to seeing what it has to say about the causes of wealth and poverty among nations. I argue that outside the OECD and a comparatively small circle of other countries, neoclassical models contribute little to identifying the deeper sources of cross- national patterns in growth and productivity. I then discuss recent advances in the empirical analysis of economic performance that feature the influence of politics, policy and institutional arrangements on entrepreneurship, innovation, investment and the efficiency with which factor inputs are transformed to output.

Public Beliefs in the Causes of Wealth and Poverty and Legitimization of Inequalities in Russia and Estonia

The article analyzes the attributions of the causes of poverty and wealth in Russia and Estonia in 1991 and 1996 and their determinants. Among the latter are the perceived actual justice of the society, the perceived size of the middle class, and the personal position in the system of inequalities. Despite the economic hardships and a rise in inequalities in both countries, individualistic explanations of wealth and poverty have increased over the 5 years between the surveys. At the same time respondents in both countries demonstrated a growing awareness of the importance of starting positions and connections to achieve wealth. The perceived middle class has a significant effect on attributions of poverty but not on wealth. Russians in Estonia have a particular bias against wealth, whereas non-Russians in Russia are more likely to justify wealth on the basis of individual merit. Explanations of poverty and wealth in Estonia are more rooted in the factors of socialization (age, education, and gender), whereas in Russia they are more rooted in the changes in the family financial circumstances between 1991 and 1996. There was a general increase in support for government intervention in distribution in both countries.

Cross-National Differences in Attributions of Wealth and Economic Success

Abstract The influence of social and individual variables on common attributions of wealth was investigated in a cross-national study. Subjects from three countries (Australia, Britain, and the Federal Republic of Germany) provided data about their (a) free-response explanations of the most common sources of wealth, (b) estimates of income levels necessary for “wealth” and for “a decent life,” (c) attribution judgments for the likely causes of wealth in general, and (d) attributions for wealth of specific targets varied by their class and ethnicity. Results suggested broad cross-national similarities in the major explanatory categories but significant differences in the weights given to them. Attributions were dependent on the national and demographic background of the judges, and reactions to target characteristics (class, ethnicity) were also largely nation specific.

Rags, Riches, and Bootstraps: Beliefs about the Causes of Wealth and Poverty

Specific beliefs pertaining to wealth and poverty emanate from metatheories about socioeconomic inequalities. As cognitions, these metatheories filter social perceptions and generate beliefs about the specific causes of wealth and poverty. Four metatheories coexist in American culture and compete for public support. The four are individualism, culturalism, structuralism/situationalism, and fatalism. Using public opinion data on beliefs about 38 often-mentioned causes of wealth and poverty, the degree of support for each metatheory was determined. Individualism was the metatheory of choice in specifying the causes of poverty, whereas culturalism and individualism vied for superiority in identifying the causes of wealth.

Lay Explanations of Wealth: Attributions for Economic Success1

The explanations people give for wealth, or financial success, are not only of considerable political importance, but also offer an opportunity to assess some of the implications of attribution theory in a real‐lie setting. In the present study, 324 subjects from all walks of life and a variety of socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds were asked to anonymously complete an extensive questionnaire assessing their (a) free response explanations of the most common sources of wealth, (b) estimates of necessary income levels for “wealth” and “a decent life,” and (c) attribution judgments for likely causes of wealth in five target categories of people. The target categories were manipulated in terms of social class and ethnicity, to include native born and migrant, and middle‐ and working‐class characters, as well as attributions to an unspecified other. Results showed that judges used four major attributional categories in explaining wealth (external‐social, internal/individual, family background, and luck‐risk factors), and that both the target persons' class and ethnicity significantly influenced the attribution strategies used. In addition, the judges' socioeconomic background, demographic position, and voting preferences also significantly affected preferred attributions and estimates of income levels. These results are discussed in terms of the role of social, political, and ideological factors in everyday explanations, and their implications for some assumptions of attribution research are considered.