Belief in egalitarianism and meritocracy

Hideaki Goto

Economics Letters, 2022, vol. 221, issue C

Abstract: Why do people often distribute joint surplus in an egalitarian way when the payoffs for more productive people are lower than those distributed in a meritocratic way? In particular, does a stationary state exist in which more productive people believe in egalitarianism even when distaste for meritocracy decreases as meritocratic payoffs increase? We extend the Bisin–Verdier model of cultural transmission to address these questions and demonstrate that such a stationary state exists, but is stable only under certain conditions. Therefore, the fractions of people believing in egalitarianism and meritocracy may continue to fluctuate.

Keywords: Egalitarianism; Meritocracy; Cultural transmission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 D63 D91 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:221:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522003706

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110896

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