Identity and Redistribution: Theory and Evidence

Sanjit Dhami, Emma Manifold and Ali al-Nowaihi

No 8397, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We propose a theoretical model that embeds social identity concerns, as in Akerlof and Kranton (2000), with inequity averse preferences, as in Fehr and Schmidt (1999). We conduct an artefactual ultimatum game experiment with registered members of British political parties, for whom political identity is salient and redistribution is also likely to be salient. The empirical results are as follows. (1) Proposers and responders demonstrate ingroup-favoritism. (2) Proposers exhibit quantitatively stronger social identity effects relative to responders. (3) As redistributive taxes increase, average offers by proposers and the average minimum acceptable offers of responders (both as a proportion of income) decline by almost the same amount, suggesting a shared understanding that is characteristic of social norms. (4) Subjects experience less disadvantageous inequity from ingroup members relative to outgroup members.

Keywords: social identity; political identity; prosocial behavior; ultimatum game; fiscal redistribution; entitlements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8397.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Identity and Redistribution: Theory and Evidence (2021)
Working Paper: Identity and Redistribution: Theory and Evidence (2019)
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:ces:ceswps:_8397

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().