The relevance of meritocratic beliefs for redistributive preferences increases with income

This study investigates how individuals’ misperceptions of their relative position in the income distribution—referred to as positioning bias—are shaped by income inequality. Drawing on the ISSP 2019 Social Inequality module, the analysis includes data from 31,368 individuals across 29 countries and employs multilevel modelling to test whether individuals are more likely to misperceive their position under conditions of high inequality. We explore heterogeneity across income groups and bias types (unbiased, underestimation, and overestimation). Findings reveal that inequality is associated with positioning bias, though the direction and magnitude depend on the individuals’ actual income position. Individuals in disadvantaged positions are more accurate in their self-perceptions when inequality is high, while those in higher-income positions tend more towards underestimating their relative standing. Overall, the results show that higher inequality is associated with lower subjective status relative to respondents’ actual position across all income groups. This research contributes to broader debates on inequality perceptions and redistributive preferences.

Since the 1990s, high-income individuals have increasingly sorted into the Democratic Party as a result of their socially liberal views. There is evidence that over time high-income Democrats have also liberalized in their economic attitudes, but the motivations behind this purported support remain unclear. This study uses a forced-choice conjoint experiment with an oversample of high-income respondents and takes the novel approach of pairing the experiment with cognitive interviews in order to explore why high-income Democrats support redistributive policies. Results show that the redistributive preferences of high-income Democrats look very similar to those of other Democrats. They prefer policies proposed by their own party. They want policies that are racially "fair," and sometimes define this to mean favoring Black recipients. Most of all, however, they are driven by a commitment to "fiscal populism," the idea that (increased) government spending should be funded by the most elite members of society.

Abstract The inverse optimum taxation approach can uncover the implicit social preferences for redistribution, ‘revealed’ through the tax-benefit system. Preferences are represented by the marginal social welfare weights (MSWWs) attributed to individuals at different income levels, which measure the social value of redistributing a euro to those individuals. Studies typically uncover preferences revealed through direct taxes and benefits only, leaving out indirect taxes. This runs counter to the standard interpretation of taxes in the optimal income taxation literature, which does include indirect taxes. We consider them along with the direct part of the Croatian tax-benefit system to uncover the implicit MSWWs and compare them to the baseline MSWWs derived based on direct taxes and benefits only. The results indicate that adding indirect taxes has a non-trivial impact on the MSWWs, suggesting that considering only direct taxes and benefits may give an incomplete picture of tax-benefit-revealed redistributive preferences. We use a simple decomposition framework to account for the changes in MSWWs.

Attractiveness and preferences for redistribution in non-Western countries

Labor market institutions and preferences for redistribution

Wealth distribution and redistributive preferences: Evidence from a randomized survey experiment

A note on aggregating preferences for redistribution

Recurring labour market shocks and stated and revealed preferences for redistribution

Abstract Debt is a global issue. The high household leverage ratio in China indicates that Chinese people may face significant debt pressure. Previous studies have found that heavy debt has a detrimental effect on individuals' cognition, emotion and behaviour. This study examines the impact of debt on policy attitudes and preferences, specifically redistribution preferences, as well as its mediation mechanism. In Study 1, self‐reported data on the amount of debt, debt pressure, wealth attribution and redistribution preferences of 10,058 Chinese citizens were obtained through the questionnaire survey. The results showed that debt pressure was positively correlated with redistribution preferences, and the external attribution of wealth played a mediation role. Study 2 recruited full‐time employees as participants and manipulated their debt pressure to obtain causal evidence. The results showed that compared with the control group, participants in the debt pressure group were more inclined to attribute wealth status externally and had stronger redistribution preferences. This study contributes to understanding indebted people's political attitudes and preferences from the perspective of social fairness.

Beyond income: Understanding preferences for redistribution among the top 1%

This article explores the macro-origins of redistributive preferences across income groups. While traditional political economy models focus primarily on the role of inequality, our study broadens this perspective by integrating both economic conditions and the institutional context into the proposed explanatory framework. Using a novel time-series cross-sectional design, we examine trends in support for redistribution amongst different income groups across seven European democracies between 1980 and 2017. Our findings reveal distinct patterns of public responsiveness: lower-income groups increase their support for redistribution in response to rising inequality, whereas middle- and higher-income groups are more sensitive to governments’ ideological orientation. Additionally, we observe that economic downturns are associated with declining support for redistribution across all income groups. By uncovering these macro-level patterns and their theoretical implications, our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the diverse dynamics that shape redistributive preferences in advanced democracies. These findings have important implications for the political sustainability of welfare states, as they illuminate how asymmetrical responses to economic and political conditions across income groups shape the prospects for solidarity and social cohesion in times of economic stress.

ABSTRACTElites are increasingly visible in academic and political discourse owing to their disproportionate power in shaping policy. For the most part, however, elites have been viewed in race‐blind terms. In this paper, we advance a racialized perspective on elite studies by highlighting three salient ways that race matters for elite views on inequality and redistribution. First, we focus on elites as racialized actors whose racial identities impact their perspectives on social policies. Second, we examine the effect of holding a historical perspective of racialized inequality on elites' redistributive preferences. Third, we highlight the importance of attending to the racialization of social policies, distinguishing between redistributive measures framed in race‐neutral and race‐conscious terms. We demonstrate the utility of a racialized approach to elite studies by analyzing survey data collected from political, economic, and civil service elites in South Africa. Findings show that elites' racialized identities shape their redistributive preferences, as do their historical understandings of racialized inequality, but these effects vary depending on whether elites are evaluating race‐conscious or race‐neutral policies.

This study addresses a long-debated question in the humanities: does culture matter? This issue gains prominence in times of intense migration, when disputes about migrants integration and their impact on the political processes become central in political discourse. Using data from the German socio-economic panel (GSOP), the study brings together empirical evidence about preferences for redistribution of both the German population and migrants originated from different welfare regimes. Focusing on the political integration of migrants, this article explores whether immigrants from Poland, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Russia adopt preferences for redistribution of native Germans during their life in Germany. By applying OLS and fixed effects models, the study tests theoretical scenarios of the adaptation of migrants in the host country and draws conclusions about the complexity of the integration process.

Experimental economists study the Public Goods Game (PGG) to investigate cooperative behavior. This study embedded inequality and income mobility into the PGG to investigate its effect on cooperation. Treatment 1 embedded fixed transfers in-between rounds of the PGG, representing equally distributed income growth. Treatments 2 and 3 embedded variable transfers in-between rounds, representing heterogeneously distributed income growth based on equal proportion of luck and effort (Treatment 2) or a disproportionate amount of luck (Treatment 3). Treatments 2 and 3 also enabled relative income mobility, while treatment 1 restricted any possibility of relative mobility. Results showed that introducing relative income mobility (Treatments 2 and 3) did not lead to greater cooperation (when compared with Treatment 1) among the players. Comparing Treatments 2 and 3, participants contributed more to the PGG when relative income mobility was dependent on effort rather than on luck. Despite theories linking weakened meritocratic beliefs with greater preferences for redistribution, in this study, contribution to the PGG fell when the income mobility process was predominantly luck-based. Unfairness observed in the income mobility process discouraged contribution, even when equity of final outcomes could be achieved through cooperation. This could be because a behavioral component of dissatisfaction against inequity in the income mobility process outweighed the motive of using the PGG to redistribute unfair income. The study also investigated within-treatment behavior of different endowment types (low class, middle class, high class) when various forms of income mobility were integrated. Under these conditions, and when relative income mobility was integrated into the PGG on a predominantly luck-based process, a significant reduction in contribution from the middle class was observed. Endowment inequality did not reduce cooperation, presumably because the associated relative income mobility incorporation into the PGG threatened downward mobility, such that higher-class participants contributed to establish a safety-net.

Abstract When and why do wealthy individuals support redistribution? Under standard political economy models, preferences for redistribution are a function of material conditions. The partisanship literature, on the contrary, argues that partisan identification determines redistributive preferences. We move beyond this dichotomy to argue that the ideology of the government enacting redistribution is a key factor explaining support for redistribution among the wealthy. Through survey experiments during the 2022 Colombian election, we find that the wealthy are more likely to support redistribution under a right-wing government and expect redistribution under the Right to be more efficient and less economically disruptive. We find heterogeneous treatment effects across ideological groups. However, regardless of ideology, the wealthy do not expect macroeconomic instability from right-wing redistribution.

Building on the deservingness heuristic—evaluating recipients based on need and effort—from evolutionary psychology, we develop a simple model of altruism conditional on deservingness to explain individuals’ redistributive preferences. We test the model’s predictions using an incentivized experiment where participants could directly transfer their earned money to a recipient with varying levels of income and effort. When recipients’ effort is clearly signaled, most participants’ choices align with the model’s predicted need and effort effect. Using finite mixture regressions, we identify three types of redistributive preferences: highly responsive to effort, less responsive, and self-interested. These categories reflect varying weightings of recipients’ efforts within the model. Moreover, we find that redistributive patterns are associated with political ideology and economic values commonly assessed in surveys. However, when recipients’ effort is absent or ambiguous, income becomes the primary determinant of resource allocation, even when effort may be partially inferred.

Abstract Can an inequality in rewards result in an erosion of broad-based support for meritocratic norms? We examine whether unequal rewards can affect social preferences for redistribution by driving a cognitive gap in the meritocratic beliefs of those who are successful and those who are not. Two separate experiments (conducted in the USA and the UK) show that the elite develop and maintain ‘meritocratic bias’ in the redistributive taxes they propose. This bias results in lower taxes on the rich and fewer transfers to the poor, including those who failed despite high effort. These social preferences at least partially reflect a self- serving meritocratic illusion that their own high income was deserved and reflected their ability. An incentivized Wason Card task confirms that individuals prefer to maintain their illusion of being meritocratic, by not expending cognitive effort to process any information that may undermine their self-image of being deserving.

A cry for fairness: the role of social conflict and income differences in shaping redistribution preferences in Pakistan

This study examines how housing wealth influences the political incorporation of immigrants in South Korea, identifying asset accumulation as a key factor shaping redistributive preferences. Using nationally representative panel data, the analysis demonstrates that immigrants who acquire housing assets—whether through ownership or appreciation in property value—become less supportive of public provision directed at other foreign residents. While immigrants initially exhibit stronger support for state intervention, greater exposure to the housing market is associated with a growing perception that existing government support is adequate and a reduced inclination to endorse expanded immigrant-targeted spending. These shifts reflect not a uniform turn toward conservatism, but a reconfiguration of political attitudes shaped by economic security, social positioning, financial constraints, and the redrawing of intra-group boundaries. In South Korea’s asset-based welfare regime, housing functions not only as a source of private stability but also as a mechanism that mediates immigrants’ evolving relationship to the state and to other immigrant groups. By situating these dynamics within a non-Western context, this study contributes to broader debates on immigration, housing, and the stratifying effects of economic incorporation.