Double Meritocratic Standards

Sueda Evirgen and Sigrid Suetens

No 20421, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper investigates whether in Germany and France double standards are used when compensating income inequalities due to differences in productivity. To do so, controlled experiments were conducted among general-population samples in which decision makers belonging to the majority group were confronted with an unequal distribution of income between two persons of which one belonged to the majority and the other to an ethnic minority group. One of these persons performed well in a productive task and the other performed poorly. On average, less money was redistributed from rich, well-performing majority to poor, poorly-performing minority persons than from rich, well-performing minority to poor, poorly-performing majority persons, providing evidence of a double meritocratic standard. The effect is driven by those decision makers who hold a negative attitude to ethnic diversity and vote for far-right political parties or not vote at all.

Keywords: Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C99 J15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07
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