This paper examines how individual preferences for redistribution depend on beliefs about what determines one's lot in life and self-assessed prospects for climbing the social ladder in urban China. We find that both beliefs about what determines one's lot in life and subjective perceptions of future mobility are correlated with the formation of left-wing beliefs and, by extension, preferences for redistribution. We find that the marginal effects of the variables measuring one's lot in life are larger than self-assessed prospects for climbing the social ladder. These findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables for the personal characteristics of the respondent, including his or her ideology, and the location in which he or she lives.
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Paper provided by Monash University, Department of Economics in its series Monash Economics Working Papers with number
05/08.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005.
"Fairness and Redistribution,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
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