Undeserving heirs: how the origins of wealth shape attitudes towards redistribution

Bastian Becker and Nora Waitkus

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Inherited wealth has often been accumulated under circumstances seen as undeserving by present-day standards. However, there is surprisingly little knowledge about the political consequences of wealth's history. We argue that illegitimate accumulation nurtures opposition and calls for redistribution, even after multiple generations. To test our theory, we conduct a survey in Germany, where many wealthy business owners inherited companies that made large fortunes during one of the darkest episodes of human history, the Nazi regime of 1933-1945. We demonstrate with a vignette experiment that individuals perceive heirs of businesses that cooperated with the Nazi regime as less deserving than other similar heirs, and are more likely to support the targeted redistribution of such inherited business wealth. Therefore, undeservingness can be inherited and passed on from one generation to another. These results align with general views and attitudes about the German economy. Our findings add to studies on the historical origins of public opinion as well as deservingness by showing how illegitimate wealth accumulation affects political attitudes across generations.

Keywords: wealth; deservingness; redistribution; entrepreneurs; history; injustice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 H20 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2025-04-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in European Societies, 30, April, 2025. ISSN: 1461-6696

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/128206/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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:ehl:lserod:128206

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().