Racial Identity, Reactions to Inequality, and Fairness Concepts among Americans

23 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2024 Last revised: 4 Nov 2024

See all articles by Eugen Dimant

Eugen Dimant

University of Pennsylvania; CESifo

Lukas Reinhardt

University of Oxford; University of Cologne

Nicholas Sambanis

Department of Political Science, Yale University

Date Written: November 03, 2024

Abstract

How do Americans react to perceptions of racial inequality? We subtly introduce economic inequality in an experiment between groups of Black and White Americans while varying whether inequality occurs by chance or is the result of human agency. Subjects are given the ability to correct that inequality by taking actions that are sometimes costly.  All subjects are more likely to correct inequality if their racial ingroup is disadvantaged. Black subjects react more strongly when inequality is man-made, whereas the source of inequality does not matter to Whites.  When they perceive their ingroup as being treated unfairly, Black subjects are willing to accept greater material costs to correct inequality than White subjects.  Subjects’ concept of fairness switches depending on whether their ingroup or outgroup is disadvantaged: they become more likely to behave unfairly themselves to correct inequality against others if the outgroup benefits at the expense of the ingroup.

Keywords: Discrimination, Identity, Racial Bias, Social Norms, Threat

JEL Classification: B41, D01, D9

Suggested Citation

Dimant, Eugen and Reinhardt, Lukas and Sambanis, Nicholas, Racial Identity, Reactions to Inequality, and Fairness Concepts among Americans (November 03, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4706524 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4706524

Eugen Dimant (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/view/eugendimant/

CESifo ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich
Germany

Lukas Reinhardt

University of Oxford ( email )

Mansfield Road
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 4AU
United Kingdom

University of Cologne ( email )

Albertus-Magnus-Platz
Cologne, 50923
Germany

Nicholas Sambanis

Department of Political Science, Yale University ( email )

New Haven, CT 06520
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
170
Abstract Views
543
Rank
361,720
PlumX Metrics