Cultural Preference for Redistribution in the United States: An Epidemiological Approach

Abstract

Inherited culture can influence economic preferences even when individual characteristics and environment are held constant. This study measures the influence of culture on preferences for economic redistribution in the United States. In following the "epidemiological approach" to assessing the role of culture, the study links the preferences of individual Americans in the General Social Survey with the preferences they may have inherited from their ancestral countries in Europe. Depending on the choice of covariates in each model, a one-unit increase in a European country's average preference for redistribution (on a 1 to 5 scale) is associated with a significant 0.20 to 0.30 increase in redistribution preference (also on a 1 to 5 scale) of the average American who has ancestry from that country. Similar effect sizes are obtained even when limiting the sample to respondents who are fourth-generation and higher Americans. An inherited cultural preference for redistribution also appears to influence political behavior, as it predicts political liberalism and Democratic party identification across all models. The findings suggest a meaningful, robust, and persistent role for culture in determining attitudes toward redistribution.

Keywords: culture, decision making, redistribution, immigration