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Voting for Redistribution under Desert‐Sensitive Altruism*
Author(s) -
Luttens Roland Iwan,
Valfort MarieAnne
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01708.x
Subject(s) - redistribution (election) , voting , desert (philosophy) , altruism (biology) , economics , democracy , microeconomics , social psychology , politics , psychology , political science , law
We endow individuals who differ in skills and tastes for working, with altruistic preferences for redistribution in a voting model where a unidimensional redistributive parameter is chosen by majority voting in a direct democracy. When altruistic preferences are desert‐sensitive (i.e., when there is a reluctance to redistribute from the hard‐working to the lazy), we show that lower levels of redistribution emerge in political equilibrium. We provide empirical evidence that preferences for redistribution are not purely selfish, and that desert‐sensitive motivations play a significant role. We estimate that preferences for redistribution are significantly more desert‐sensitive in the US than in Europe.