Your Place in the World: Relative Income and Global Inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fehr, Dietmar; Mollerstrom, Johanna; Perez-Truglia, Ricardo
• 署名单位: Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; George Mason University; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN); University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20200343
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 232-268
• 关键词: willingness-to-pay; redistribution evidence; social preferences; public-opinion; FOREIGN-AID; demand; fairness; COMPETITION; mobility

摘要

Although there is abundant evidence on individual preferences for policies that reduce national inequality, there is very little evidence on preferences for policies addressing global inequality. To investigate the latter, we conducted a two-year, face-to-face survey experiment on a representative sample of Germans. We measure how individuals form perceptions of their ranks in the national and global income distributions and how these perceptions relate to their national and global policy preferences. We find that Germans systematically underestimate their true place in the world's income distribution but that correcting those misperceptions does not affect their support for policies related to global inequality. (JEL D12, D31, D63, H23)