The Merit Primacy Effect

Alexander Cappelen, Karl Ove Moene, Siv-Elisabeth Skjelbred and Bertil Tungodden

The Economic Journal, 2023, vol. 133, issue 651, 951-970

Abstract: A long history in economics going back to Adam Smith has argued that people give primacy to merit—rather than luck—in distributive choices. We provide a theoretical framework formalising the merit primacy effect, and study it in a novel experiment where third-party spectators redistribute from high earners to low earners in situations where both merit and luck determine earnings. We identify a strong and consistent merit primacy effect in the spectator behaviour. The results shed new light on inequality acceptance in society, by showing how just a little bit of merit can make people significantly more inequality accepting.

Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Working Paper: The Merit Primacy Effect (2017)
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