IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crm/wpaper/26204.html

The Value of Income, Safety and Elections across the World

Author

Listed:
  • Alicia Adsera
  • Andreu Arenas
  • Carles Boix

Abstract

We examine how individuals value fundamental political and economic goods and institutions through a global conjoint experiment fielded in eight countries (Argentina, urban China, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States). Respondents choose between societies that randomly vary in economic outcomes (personal income, country income, income inequality, social mobility), safety, and political outcomes (public healthcare, free elections). We estimate the marginal effects of and willingness to pay for these outcomes at the country and respondent levels. Average valuations of personal and country incomes and personal safety are roughly similar across countries. By contrast, the average value of democracy, defined as free elections, varies substantially. Whereas the average Chinese respondent is willing to give up democracy for an increase in individual income equivalent to one quarter of average country income, the average American is willing to do so only for twice the U.S. average country income. Unlike income and safety, for which most individual-level variation is explained by respondents' personal characteristics, variation in respondents' taste for free elections is substantially explained by their country. Our findings contribute to research on the structure of human preferences, demand for democratic institutions, and estimation of policy and redistributive preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Alicia Adsera & Andreu Arenas & Carles Boix, 2026. "The Value of Income, Safety and Elections across the World," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 26204, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    • Handle: RePEc:crm:wpaper:26204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/26204.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth E. Fernandez & Michele Kuenzi, 2010. "Crime and Support for Democracy in Africa and Latin America," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58, pages 450-471, June.
    2. Ilyana Kuziemko & Michael I. Norton & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2015. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1478-1508, April.
    3. Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2021. "Perceptions and Preferences for Redistribution," CEPR Discussion Papers 16638, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Christopher Claassen, 2020. "Does Public Support Help Democracy Survive?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(1), pages 118-134, January.
    5. Kenneth E. Fernandez & Michele Kuenzi, 2010. "Crime and Support for Democracy in Africa and Latin America," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(3), pages 450-471, June.
    6. Wuttke, Alexander & Gavras, Konstantin & Schoen, Harald, 2022. "Have Europeans Grown Tired of Democracy? New Evidence from Eighteen Consolidated Democracies, 1981–2018," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 416-428, January.
    7. Daniel J. Benjamin & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball & Nichole Szembrot, 2014. "Beyond Happiness and Satisfaction: Toward Well-Being Indices Based on Stated Preference," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2698-2735, September.
    8. Angus Deaton, 2008. "Income, Health, and Well-Being around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 53-72, Spring.
    9. Graham, Matthew H. & Svolik, Milan W., 2020. "Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 392-409, May.
    10. Bratton, Michael & Mattes, Robert, 2001. "Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or Instrumental?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(3), pages 447-474, July.
    11. Boix, Carles, 2011. "Democracy, Development, and the International System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 809-828, November.
    12. Stefan Wager & Susan Athey, 2018. "Estimation and Inference of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects using Random Forests," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(523), pages 1228-1242, July.
    13. Jeff Cummins, 2009. "Issue Voting and Crime in Gubernatorial Elections," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(3), pages 632-651, September.
    14. Olson, Mancur, 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 567-576, September.
    15. Neundorf, Anja & Dahlum, Sirianne & Skaaning Frederiksen, Kristian Vrede & Öztürk, Aykut, 2026. "Elections Without Constraints? The Appeal of Electoral Autocracy Across the World," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56, pages 1-1, January.
    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. Kai-Ping Huang, 2023. "Support for Democracy in the Age of Rising Inequality and Population Aging," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 27-51, February.
    2. Troy D. Thomas & Koen Abts & Koen Stroeken, 2025. "Explaining Support for Democracy in Guyana," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(3), pages 21582440251, September.
    3. Julián Arévalo B., 2016. "State capacity and support for democracy: challenges and opportunities for post conflict Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo UEC 19536, Universidad Externado de Colombia.
    4. Jennifer Oser & Marc Hooghe & Zsuzsa Bakk & Roberto Mari, 2023. "Changing citizenship norms among adolescents, 1999-2009-2016: A two-step latent class approach with measurement equivalence testing," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4915-4933, October.
    5. Iddisah Sulemana, 2015. "The Effect of Fear of Crime and Crime Victimization on Subjective Well-Being in Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 849-872, April.
    6. Yann Algan & Fabrice Murtin & Elizabeth Beasley & Kazuhito Higa & Claudia Senik, 2019. "Well-being through the lens of the internet," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-23, January.
    7. Schwarz, Anna & Warum, Philipp, 2024. "Don’t stop believin’: Income group heterogeneity in updating of social mobility beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 1-19.
    8. Blanco, Luisa R., 2013. "The impact of crime on trust in institutions in Mexico," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 38-55.
    9. Sun Youn Lee & Fumio Ohtake, 2021. "How Conscious Are You of Others? Further Evidence on Relative Income and Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 3321-3356, December.
    10. Thomas Isbell, 2024. "Where You Sit Is Where You Stand: Perceived (In)Equality and Demand for Democracy in Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 817-836, September.
    11. Daniel J. Benjamin & Kristen Cooper & Ori Heffetz & Miles Kimball, 2024. "From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 359-391, August.
    12. Yann Algan & Elizabeth Beasley & Florian Guyot & Kazuhito Higad & Fabrice Murtin & Claudia Senik, 2015. "Big Data Measures of Well-Being: Evidence from a Google Well-Being Index in the US," PSE Working Papers hal-03429943, HAL.
    13. repec:osf:osfxxx:yn9rz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Kalsi, Jaslin & Mackay, Robert & Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Tarverdi, Yashar, 2025. "Crimes of the current: Natural disasters and crime in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    15. Shigeoka, Hitoshi & Yamada, Katsunori, 2019. "Income-comparison attitudes in the United States and the United Kingdom: Evidence from discrete-choice experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 414-438.
    16. Sarah Berens & Sabrina Karim, 2024. "Quotidian crime, wartime violence and public goods preferences: Evidence from Liberia," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(4), pages 545-559, July.
    17. Eiji Yamamura, 2021. "Information of income position and its impact on perceived tax burden and preference for redistribution: An Internet Survey Experiment," Papers 2106.11537, arXiv.org.
    18. Elias, Julio & Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario, 2016. "Efficiency-Morality Trade-Offs in Repugnant Transactions: A Choice Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 10187, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa A. & Meißner, Daniel & Ziblatt, Daniel, 2026. "Voters' orientations towards democracy: A new conceptual framework," Discussion Papers, Research Group Waves of Regime Transformation SP V 2026-701, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    20. Noel Semple, 2021. "Good Enough for Government Work? Life-Evaluation and Public Policy," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1119-1140, March.
    21. Kristin M Bakke & Marianne Dahl & Kit Rickard, 2025. "Conflict exposure and democratic values: Evidence from wartime Ukraine," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 62(5), pages 1376-1392, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:crm:wpaper:26204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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: Moritz Lubczyk or Matthew Nibloe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmucluk.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.