Effort, luck, and voting for redistribution

Lars Lefgren (), David P. Sims and Olga Stoddard

Journal of Public Economics, 2016, vol. 143, issue C, 89-97

Abstract: We conduct an experiment to determine how the correspondence between economic rewards and effort, as opposed to luck, affects subjects' ex post voting over redistribution. We find that a large, statistically significant proportion of both high- and low-payoff voters are willing to vote contrary to their self-interest in favor of groups that exert proportionately more effort. We confirm these results in an additional, distinct sample. We also show that when subjects' own effort is greater than the group's average effort level, they exhibit greater self-interest in voting for redistribution compared to subjects whose effort is below average. Our results have implications for both understanding individual redistributive preferences and group voting behavior.

Keywords: Experimental economics; Voting for redistribution; Taxation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272716301128
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:pubeco:v:143:y:2016:i:c:p:89-97

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.08.012

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().