Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/32195 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2009,37
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract (Translated): 
The Eroding Trust in Capitalism and its Consequences for Law: On both sides of the Atlantic, legislators consider a cap on manager income. As a redistributive intervention, the cap would be misplaced. It affects such a small number of persons that the effect on the Gini coefficient would be negligible. Redistribution is, however, not the raison d'être of the rule. The public perceives a very high yearly income of some as a signal for a lack of solidarity in society, especially if recipients are responsible for low wages or even unemployment of many. Based on demoscopic data from Germany, this article shows that generalised trust in capitalism has indeed severely suffered. It explains why this is troublesome news for the legal order. From this starting point, it discusses the justification of a cap on manager income, despite the fact that the German constitution (unlike the US Lochner jurisprudence) in principle protects economic freedom of managers, firms and stockowners. While it cannot offer a strict proof that manager income works as a signal, if offers a piece of indirect evidence. By way of regression analysis, it shows that the Gini coefficient explains interviewees' assessment of the justice of capitalism very well, once one controls for the unemployment rate in the year in question, plus the interaction between both explanatory variables.
Subjects: 
cap on manager income
generalised trust in capitalism
Gini coefficient
limits to interventions into fundamental freedoms
unemployment rate
JEL: 
G34
J31
K22
L22
P10
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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