How Elastic are Preferences for Redistribution? New Results on Partisan Polarization

Abstract

I show that a stylized fact on the decades-long stability in preferences for income redistribution – which has surprised public economists, given the spike in inequality – masks a divergence across parties. I then demonstrate that the widening divide owes to preferences sorting rather than strengthening. Next, I return to survey experiments on the elasticity of preferences to information treatments and, in contrast to previous literature, I find a simple treatment that induces substantial support for taxation and redistribution among conservatives. This treatment closes upwards of half the gap in preferences between liberals and conservatives, a key finding amidst worsening polarization.