(In-)equality of Opportunity, Fairness, and Distributional Preferences

Dietmar Fehr, Daniel Müller and Marcel Preuss

No 10001, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper examines how perceived importance of family background affect distributional pref-erences using two large-scale survey experiments. In the first experiment, we randomly inform respondents about the relationship between parental income and economic success later in life, which renders their perceptions of equality of opportunity more pessimistic. However, this changes neither revealed distributional preferences nor pro-social behavior toward the rich and poor. The second experiment shows that respondents do not account for parental influence on economic success when making (re-)distribution decisions, suggesting that people view parental influence as a legitimate reason to justify some inequality. This can explain why distributional preferences are immune to changes in perceptions of equality of opportunity.

Keywords: distributional preferences; inequality of opportunity; social mobility; survey experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D31 H23 H24 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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