Your Place in the World: Relative Income and Global Inequality
92 Pages Posted: 30 Dec 2019 Last revised: 30 Aug 2021
There are 3 versions of this paper
Your Place in the World: Relative Income and Global Inequality
Your Place in the World - Relative Income and Global Inequality
Your Place in the World: Relative Income and Global Inequality
Date Written: December 7, 2019
Abstract
Although there is abundant evidence on individual preferences for policies that reduce national inequality, there is very little evidence on preferences for policies addressing global inequality. To investigate the latter, we conduct a two-year, face-to-face survey experiment on a representative sample of Germans. We measure how individuals form perceptions of their ranks in the national and global income distributions, and how those perceptions relate to their national and global policy preferences. We find that Germans systematically underestimate their true place in the world's income distribution, but that correcting those misperceptions does not affect their support for policies related to global inequality.
Keywords: inequality, redistribution, survey, experiment
JEL Classification: C83, C91, D63, D72, H23, H24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation