Biased Perceptions of Income Inequality and Redistribution

Carina Engelhardt and Andreas Wagener

VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: When based on perceived rather than on objective income distributions, the Meltzer-Richards hypothesis and the POUM hypothesis work quite well empirically: there exists a positive link between perceived inequality or perceived upward mobility and the extent of redistribution in democratic regimes though such a link does not exist when objective measures of inequality and social mobility are used. These observations highlight that political preferences and choices might depend more on perceptions than on factual data.

JEL-codes: D31 D72 H53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv, nep-pbe and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Biased Perceptions of Income Inequality and Redistribution (2014)
Working Paper: Biased Perceptions of Income Inequality and Redistribution (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100395

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