Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/267969 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
MUNI ECON Working Paper No. 2022-07
Publisher: 
Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Brno
Abstract: 
We suggest that people advocate for equality also because they fear income losses below a given reference point. Stabilizing their baseline income can make workers more tolerant of inequality. We present evidence of this attitude in the UK by exploiting the introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW), which institutionally set a baseline pay reducing the risk of income losses for British workers at the bottom of the income distribution. Based on data from the British Household Panel Survey, we show that workers that benefited from the NMW program became relatively more tolerant of inequality and more likely to vote for the Conservative party.
Subjects: 
Inequality
Redistribution
Minimum wage
Reference dependency
United Kingdom.
JEL: 
H10
H53
D63
D69
Z1
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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