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How to elicit distributional preferences: A stress-test of the equality equivalence test

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  • Krawczyk, Michal
  • Le Lec, Fabrice

Abstract

The experimental measurement of social preferences has led to somewhat equivocal results. The experimental Equality Equivalence Test proposed by Kerschbamer (2015) is a promising, simple, model-free and comprehensive tool for eliciting distributional social preferences. We here assess the validity of this method by modifying it so that we can test its key assumption: that the strength of the concern for the inactive player depends only on whether her payoff is above or below that of the decision-maker. In general, we find that this assumption holds. Moreover, the prevalence of types of social preferences that we observe is similar to that in the original paper, with selfish and quasi-maximin (Charness and Rabin 2002) being the most common.

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  • Krawczyk, Michal & Le Lec, Fabrice, 2021. "How to elicit distributional preferences: A stress-test of the equality equivalence test," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 13-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:182:y:2021:i:c:p:13-28
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.11.028
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    Cited by:

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    2. Begoña Cabeza;, 2023. "Social preferences, support for redistribution, and attitudes towards vulnerable groups," Working Papers 2308, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social preference; Fairness models; Distributive justice; Indifference curves; Altruism; Concern for efficiency; Inequity aversion; Quasi-maximin;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

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