IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v108y2018i2p521-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Alesina
  • Stefanie Stantcheva
  • Edoardo Teso

Abstract

Using new cross-country survey and experimental data, we investigate how beliefs about intergenerational mobility affect preferences for redistribution in France, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Americans are more optimistic than Europeans about social mobility. Our randomized treatment shows pessimistic information about mobility and increases support for redistribution, mostly for "equality of opportunity" policies. We find strong political polarization. Left-wing respondents are more pessimistic about mobility: their preferences for redistribution are correlated with their mobility perceptions; and they support more redistribution after seeing pessimistic information. None of this is true for right-wing respondents, possibly because they see the government as a "problem" and not as the "solution".

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Alesina & Stefanie Stantcheva & Edoardo Teso, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 521-554, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:108:y:2018:i:2:p:521-54
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20162015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20162015
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=R7qseocjT1TgRm8H0kSfcI0wIZIfyOOh
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=iNKbKFPL8b_4vFYvBxUfY2g6jcNvKuZ8
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=XpPiECVJvYuQEvnS3VhATmmy4sntzjIb
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weinzierl, Matthew, 2014. "The promise of positive optimal taxation: normative diversity and a role for equal sacrifice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 128-142.
    2. Mounir Karadja & Johanna Mollerstrom & David Seim, 2017. "Richer (and Holier) Than Thou? The Effect of Relative Income Improvements on Demand for Redistribution," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 201-212, May.
    3. Jo Blanden, 2013. "Cross-Country Rankings In Intergenerational Mobility: A Comparison Of Approaches From Economics And Sociology," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 38-73, February.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    5. Björklund, Anders & Roine, Jesper & Waldenström, Daniel, 2012. "Intergenerational top income mobility in Sweden: Capitalist dynasties in the land of equal opportunity?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 474-484.
    6. Benjamin J. Newman & Christopher D. Johnston & Patrick L. Lown, 2015. "False Consciousness or Class Awareness? Local Income Inequality, Personal Economic Position, and Belief in American Meritocracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(2), pages 326-340, February.
    7. Matthew Weinzierl, 2018. "Revisiting the Classical View of Benefit‐based Taxation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 37-64, July.
    8. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren, 2018. "The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(3), pages 1163-1228.
    9. Stefano DellaVigna & Devin Pope, 2018. "Predicting Experimental Results: Who Knows What?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(6), pages 2410-2456.
    10. Dunnzlaff, Lina & Neumann, Dirk & Niehues, Judith & Peichl, Andreas, 2010. "Equality of Opportunity and Redistribution in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 5375, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Lockwood, Benjamin B. & Weinzierl, Matthew, 2016. "Positive and normative judgments implicit in U.S. tax policy, and the costs of unequal growth and recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 30-47.
    12. Niehues, Judith & Peichl, Andreas, 2011. "Lower and Upper Bounds of Unfair Inequality: Theory and Evidence for Germany and the US," IZA Discussion Papers 5834, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Jesper Roine & Daniel Waldenström, 2009. "Wealth Concentration over the Path of Development: Sweden, 1873–2006," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(1), pages 151-187, March.
    14. Lockwood, Benjamin B. & Weinzierl, Matthew, 2015. "De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in preferences and optimal redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 74-80.
    15. Cruces, Guillermo & Perez-Truglia, Ricardo & Tetaz, Martin, 2013. "Biased perceptions of income distribution and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 100-112.
    16. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    17. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    18. Vivekinan Ashok & Ilyana Kuziemko & Ebonya Washington, 2015. "Support for Redistribution in an Age of Rising Inequality: New Stylized Facts and Some Tentative Explanations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 367-433.
    19. Chetty, Nadarajan & Hendren, Nathaniel & Kline, Patrick & Saez, Emmanuel, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," Scholarly Articles 30750027, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    20. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(2), pages 187-278.
    21. Chetty, Raj & Hendren, Nathaniel & Katz, Lawrence F., 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," Scholarly Articles 30367426, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    22. Andreas Peichl & Martin Ungerer, 2017. "Equality Of Opportunity: East Vs. West Germany," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(4), pages 421-427, October.
    23. Robert H. Frank, 2016. "Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10663.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barton, Jared & Pan, Xiaofei, 2022. "Movin’ on up? A survey experiment on mobility enhancing policies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Durlauf, Steven N. & Kourtellos, Andros & Tan, Chih Ming, 2021. "The Great Gatsby Curve," SocArXiv mrw9y, Center for Open Science.
    3. Jo Blanden & Matthias Doepke & Jan Stuhler, 2022. "Education inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp1849, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Fehr, Dietmar & Vollmann, Martin, 2020. "Misperceiving Economic Success: Experimental Evidence on Meritocratic Beliefs and Inequality Acceptance," Working Papers 0695, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    5. Deutscher, Nathan & Mazumder, Bhashkar, 2021. "Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches," SocArXiv 3qnuv, Center for Open Science.
    6. Alessandra Michelangeli & John Östh & Umut Türk, 2022. "Intergenerational income mobility in Sweden: A look at the spatial disparities across municipalities," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(4), pages 981-1004, August.
    7. Dietmar Fehr & Daniel Müller & Marcel Preuss, 2020. "Social Mobility Perceptions and Inequality Acceptance," Working Papers 2020-02, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    8. Alex Bell & Raj Chetty & Xavier Jaravel & Neviana Petkova & John Van Reenen, 2019. "Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 134(2), pages 647-713.
    9. Chong Lu, 2022. "The effect of migration on rural residents’ intergenerational subjective social status mobility in China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3279-3308, October.
    10. Michael J. Kottelenberg & Steven F. Lehrer, 2019. "How Skills and Parental Valuation of Education Influence Human Capital Acquisition and Early Labor Market Return to Human Capital in Canada," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 735-778.
    11. Dylan Shane Connor & Michael Storper, 2020. "The changing geography of social mobility in the United States," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(48), pages 30309-30317, December.
    12. Bosquet, Clément & Overman, Henry G., 2019. "Why does birthplace matter so much?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 26-34.
    13. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Hartley, Daniel, 2020. "Accounting for central neighborhood change, 1980–2010," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    14. Windsteiger, Lisa, 2022. "The redistributive consequences of segregation and misperceptions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    15. Raoul van Maarseveen, 2021. "The urban–rural education gap: do cities indeed make us smarter? [Educational investment responses to economic opportunity: evidence from Indian road construction]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(5), pages 683-714.
    16. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren, 2018. "The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(3), pages 1107-1162.
    17. Julián Costas-Fernández & José-Alberto Guerra & Myra Mohnen, 2020. "Train to Opportunity: the Effect of Infrastructure on Intergenerational Mobility," Documentos CEDE 18591, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    18. Anustup Kundu & Kunal Sen, 2021. "Multigenerational mobility in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-32, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Munoz Saavedra,Ercio Andres, 2022. "Does It Matter Where You Grow Up ? Childhood Exposure Effects in Latin America and the Caribbean," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10037, The World Bank.
    20. Marie Connolly & Miles Corak & Catherine Haeck, 2019. "Intergenerational Mobility Between and Within Canada and the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 595-641.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:108:y:2018:i:2:p:521-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.