LISS Grant 2021. Authors: Jochem de Bresser (Tilburg School of Economics and Management); Marike Knoef (Leiden University – Faculty of Law)
In democracies the views of the voting population ultimately determine important policies, such as income redistribution. Recent trends in income inequality, migration and inter-generational mobility motivate a new wave of attention for preferences for income distributions and redistribution. The research in this proposal presents an innovative next step in our understanding of both the measurement and drivers of these important preferences, which are especially relevant when governments rebalance budgets in the wake of COVID-19 stimulus packages. The contribution lies in the combination of novel approaches to measurement that exploit the possibilities of large, online panels and randomized survey experiments that allow estimation of the causal impact of different types of information on preferences for distributions and redistribution. In terms of measurement, our survey items use interactive graphs and tables to help respondents make meaningful choices and construct their ideal income distribution. Randomized provision of different types of information enables us to estimate the causal effect of one’s own income, the COVID pandemic and the ubiquity of part-time work on preferences.
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