Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence

Andrew Clark and Conchita D'Ambrosio

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Abstract: We review the findings in surveys and experiments from the literature on attitudes to income inequality. We interpret the latter as any disparity in incomes between individuals. We classify these contributions into two broad groups of individual attitudes to income distribution in a society: the normative and the comparative view. The first can be thought of as the individual's disinterested evaluation of income inequality; on the contrary, the second view reflects self-interest, as individual's inequality attitudes depend not only on how much income they receive but also on how much they receive compared to others. We conclude with a number of extensions, outstanding issues and suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Attitudes; Distribution; Experiments; Income inequality; Life satisfaction; Reference groups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-ger, nep-hap, nep-hpe and nep-ltv
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00967938v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence (2015)
Working Paper: Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence (2015)
Working Paper: Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence (2014)
Working Paper: Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00967938

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