Measuring Preferences for Income Equality and Income Mobility
Date
2022-09-27
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Review of Economics and Statistics
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.
Description
This article was originally published in The Review of Economics and Statistics. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01240
Keywords
income inequality, income mobility, social preferences
Citation
Lara E., Bernardo, and Kenneth A. Shores. “Measuring Preferences for Income Equality and Income Mobility.” The Review of Economics and Statistics, September 27, 2022, 1–45. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01240.