How does information about inequality shape voting intentions and preferences for redistribution? Evidence from a randomized survey experiment in Indonesia
Christopher Hoy , Russell Toth , Nurina Merdikawati
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
We test the elasticity of people's voting intentions and preferences for redistribution to information about inequality through a large-scale, randomised survey experiment in Indonesia. Respondents received information about either (1) the level of national inequality, (2) the level of national inequality in combination with the degree of intergenerational mobility, (3) their position in the national income distribution, or no information. The first two treatments raised people's concern about inequality and mobility. The first treatment also increased the likelihood they would vote against the President. The third treatment lowered richer respondents’ support for redistribution. These findings provide new insights about the challenges of increasing public support for government-led redistribution, such as tax increases and greater spending on social protection, in middle-income country settings.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly the Journal of Socio-Economics) welcomes submissions that deal with various economic topics but also involve issues that are related to other social sciences, especially psychology, or use experimental methods of inquiry. Thus, contributions in behavioral economics, experimental economics, economic psychology, and judgment and decision making are especially welcome. The journal is open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, experiments, surveys, empirical work, theoretical models, meta-analyses, case studies, and simulation-based analyses. Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide substantial contribution beyond what the reader could get by simply reading the abstracts of the cited papers. In empirical work, it is important that the results are not only statistically significant but also economically significant. A high contribution-to-length ratio is expected from published articles and therefore papers should not be unnecessarily long, and short articles are welcome. Articles should be written in a manner that is intelligible to our generalist readership. Book reviews are generally solicited but occasionally unsolicited reviews will also be published. Contact the Book Review Editor for related inquiries.