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Group income and individual preferences for redistribution
Author(s) -
Quattrociocchi Jeff
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
canadian journal of economics/revue canadienne d'économique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1540-5982
pISSN - 0008-4085
DOI - 10.1111/caje.12358
Subject(s) - redistribution (election) , redistribution of income and wealth , ethnic group , demographic economics , robustness (evolution) , economics , survey data collection , sample (material) , microeconomics , statistics , mathematics , sociology , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , public good , chromatography , politics , anthropology , law , gene
This paper empirically examines the relationship between group income and an individual's preferences for redistribution. First, I develop a theoretical framework where an individual's identity is strengthened by the status of their group. Then, utilizing data from the US General Social Survey, I find evidence that the average incomes of one's ethnic and religious groups are negatively correlated with one's preferences for redistribution. Controlling for household income and a number of other individual‐level characteristics and additional controls, I find that a standard deviation increase in the average income of one's social groups correlates to a weakening of an individual's preferences for redistribution by 7% to 8%. This result is robust to the inclusion of rich controls and alternate measures of group status as well as a number of robustness checks, such as sample restrictions and the use of additional data.