RECSM Seminar: “The Role of Merit and Structural Inequality in Redistributive Preferences”

Abstract:

Meritocratic beliefs are widely invoked to legitimate inequality, yet evidence remains mixed on how redistributive preferences respond to different types of inequality and their attribution to individual effort and structural constraints. I test these mechanisms using a large-scale digital lab-in-the-field experiment in an online labour platform. Participants engaged in a one-shot give-or-take redistribution game with peers who are either low performers or non-native English speakers. This design allows to identify the causal effects of performance versus structural attributions on redistributive preferences across advantaged, disadvantaged, and equal states. To formalise expectations, I develop an attribution-conditioned fairness model, which extends established frameworks of inequality aversion and desert-based fairness by making fairness weights endogenous to attributional cues. The model generates testable predictions, and the experimental evidence shows that redistribution declines when inequality is framed as merit-based and increases when framed as structural disadvantage in the advantaged inequality state.

Register to join online here: https://upf-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/WNFRwa1CRIGTmGRDQMy__g
This session is open to everyone, so feel free to spread the word!