Inequality and Relative Ability Beliefs

Jeffrey Butler

No 1305, EIEF Working Papers Series from Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF)

Abstract: In this study I present experimental evidence of a novel channel yielding inequality persistence. In an initial experiment, results suggest that individuals respond to salient inequality by adjusting their performance beliefs to justify the inequality. Subsequent experiments reveal: i) that it is beliefs about relative ability, an ostensibly stable trait, rather than effort provision that respond to inequality; and that ii) unequal pay in an initial task affects willingness to compete on a subsequent task for male participants. Taken together, these patterns may cause inequality to become self-perpetuating. I conclude by discussing some implications of these findings.

Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2013, Revised 2013-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe, nep-hrm and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.eief.it/files/2013/03/wp-05-inequality- ... -ability-beliefs.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Inequality and Relative Ability Beliefs (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eie:wpaper:1305

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in EIEF Working Papers Series from Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Facundo Piguillem ().