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Are egalitarian preferences based on envy?

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  • Kemp, Simon
  • Bolle, Friedel

Abstract

We investigated whether preferences for living in a society with equal (or unequal) incomes were related to individual differences in how envious people were. Four studies measured dispositional envy with a scale developed by Smith et al. (1999). The first study showed that dispositional envy correlated quite strongly with individual's ratings of how much they would envy another's success for a number of different objects of envy. Studies 2, 3 and 4 found little correlation between dispositional envy and rated preferences for living in a society with more equal incomes for five scenarios which were predicted to be productive of envy for samples of New Zealand students, East German students, and New Zealand general public respectively. Study 3 also found a similar result for an experiment in which distribution decisions implied corresponding money transfers to the participants. Overall, the four studies indicate that individual differences in envy are only weak predictors of preferences for egalitarian income distributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kemp, Simon & Bolle, Friedel, 2013. "Are egalitarian preferences based on envy?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 57-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:45:y:2013:i:c:p:57-63
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2013.04.006
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    Cited by:

    1. Bäker, Agnes & Güth, Werner & Pull, Kerstin & Stadler, Manfred, 2015. "Three-person envy games: Experimental evidence and a stylized model," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 79, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    2. De Clercq, Dirk & Haq, Inam Ul & Azeem, Muhammad Umer, 2018. "The roles of informational unfairness and political climate in the relationship between dispositional envy and job performance in Pakistani organizations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 117-126.
    3. Bäker, Agnes & Güth, Werner & Pull, Kerstin & Stadler, Manfred, 2015. "The willingness to pay for partial vs. universal equality," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 55-61.
    4. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2014. "Reduction of income inequality and subjective well-being in Europe," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 8, pages 1-29.

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    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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