Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence

Andrew Clark and Conchita D'Ambrosio

No 8136, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We review the survey and experimental findings in the literature on attitudes to income inequality. We interpret the latter as any disparity in incomes between individuals. We classify these findings into two broad types of individual attitudes towards the 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: life satisfaction; attitudes; income inequality; reference groups; experiments; distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D31 D63 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 78 pages
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hap and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published - published in: A. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon (Eds.): Handbook of Income Distribution, 2A, 2015, 1147-1208

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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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