Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/180167 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2017-16
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Research Platform Empirical and Experimental Economics (eeecon), Innsbruck
Abstract: 
This paper investigates - in a large heterogeneous sample - the relationship between social preferences on the one hand, and socioeconomic factors and political preferences on the other hand. Socioeconomic factors correlate with social preferences, and social preferences robustly shape political attitudes and voting behavior in a particular way: Selfish subjects are the extremists on one side of the political spectrum - they are more likely to vote for a rightwing party, they are less inclined to favor redistribution and they are more likely to self-assess themselves as right-wing than all the other types. Inequality-averse subjects, altruists and maxi-min sit at the opposite end of the political spectrum, while all the other types behave less systematically and in a less extreme fashion. Overall, our evidence indicates that elicited social preferences are externally valid as a predictor for political attitudes, and that social preferences are fairly stable across contexts and over longer periods of time.
Subjects: 
Distributional Preferences
Social Preferences
Equality Equivalence Test
Political Attitudes
Voting Behavior
German Internet Panel
JEL: 
C91
D30
D63
D64
D72
H50
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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