Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207074 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2019-08
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Research Platform Empirical and Experimental Economics (eeecon), Innsbruck
Abstract: 
We elicit distributional fairness ideals of impartial spectators using an incentivized elicitation in a large and heterogeneous sample of the German population. We document several empirical facts: i) egalitarianism is the predominant ideal; ii) females are more egalitarian than men; iii) men are relatively more efficiency minded; iv) left-leaning voters are more likely to be egalitarians whereas right-leaning voters are more likely to be efficiency minded; and v) young and highly-educated participants hold different fairness ideals than the rest of the population. Moreover, we show that the fairness ideals predict preferences for redistribution and intervention by the government, as well as actual charitable giving, even after controlling for a range of covariates. Hence, our paper contributes to our understanding of the underpinnings of voting behavior and ideological preferences, as well the literature that links lab and field behavior.
Subjects: 
Distributional fairness
impartial spectator
representative sample
political attitudes
voting behavior
lab to field
JEL: 
C90
D31
D63
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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