Measuring Preferences for Income Equality and Income Mobility

Abstract

This paper quantifies preferences for income equality and mobility by generating statistics that are uncorrelated with beliefs and can be interpreted as marginal rates of substitution (MRS). All else constant, U.S. residents are willing to reduce average income by $2,744 to reduce the 90/10 income inequality ratio one unit and $1,228 to increase income mobility from the bottom quintile one percentage point. Democrats and Independents have similar preferences for both social variables, while Republicans have an MRS that is about two-thirds of Democrats and Independents for both income inequality and mobility.