What explains preferences for redistribution? Evidence from an international survey

Julien Bonnet, Emanuele Ciani, Gianluca Grimalda, Fabrice Murtin and David Pipke

European Economic Review, 2025, vol. 180, issue C

Abstract: Income redistribution differs widely across countries. Several theories have been developed to account for such differences. However, we know little about their relative importance. This paper fills this gap, contrasting the main theories of preferences for redistribution in a unified empirical framework. We implement standardized hypothetical choices of income redistribution in nationally representative samples of Germany, Italy, Japan, Slovenia, the UK, and the US. We find that the beliefs in fair opportunities for upward mobility are the strongest predictor of demand for redistribution. Surprisingly, higher trust in government correlates with a lower demand. The perception of immigrants as a threat to society also significantly reduces preferences for redistribution, whereas other factors, such as self-interest, social capital, and incentivized measures of pro-sociality, play lesser roles. We uncover significant cross-country heterogeneity; for instance, beliefs in fair opportunities strongly influence redistribution preferences in the US, UK, and Germany, but are less impactful elsewhere. Our findings reveal limited variability in how theoretical factors relate to redistribution preferences across socio-demographic groups, with notable exceptions. Attitudes towards immigrants have a stronger influence on redistribution preferences among non-right-wing respondents in the US and Germany. Contrary to previous research, beliefs in fair opportunities show no significant differences by political orientation, indicating a widely accepted, ideologically neutral view of fairness.

Keywords: Redistribution; Social preferences; Beliefs; Equal opportunity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D64 H23 H24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292125002004
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:eecrev:v:180:y:2025:i:c:s0014292125002004

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105150

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().