Cutthroat capitalism versus cuddly socialism: Are Americans more meritocratic and efficiency-seeking than Scandinavians

Ingvild Almas (), Alexander W. Cappelen () and Bertil Tungodden
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Ingvild Almas: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH , Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway, https://www.nhh.no/en/employees/faculty/ingvild-almas/
Alexander W. Cappelen: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH , Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway, https://www.nhh.no/en/employees/faculty/alexander-wright-cappelen/

No 4/2019, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: There are striking differences in inequality and redistribution between the United States and Scandinavia. To study whether there are corresponding differences in social preferences, we conducted a large-scale international social preference experiment where Americans and Norwegians make distributive choices in identical environments. Combining the infrastructure of an international online labor market and that of a leading international data collection agency, we show that Americans and Norwegians differ significantly in fairness views, but not in the importance assigned to efficiency. In particular, we find that Americans accept significantly more inequality than Norwegians, even when they make distributive choices in identical situations. The study also provides general insights into the nature of social preferences. We provide causal evidence suggesting that fairness considerations are more fundamental for inequality acceptance than efficiency considerations. In both countries, merit instead of luck as the source of inequality causes a huge increase in inequality acceptance, while the introduction of a cost of redistribution has a negligible effect on the distributive choices of the participants.

Keywords: Inequality; Cost redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 85 pages
Date: 2019-02-27, Revised 2019-02-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians? (2020)
Working Paper: Cutthroat capitalism versus cuddly socialism: Are Americans more meritocratic and efficiency-seeking than Scandinavians? (2017)
Working Paper: Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans more Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians? (2016)
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