Zero-Sum Views and Support for Redistribution Across Borders

This paper provides causal evidence on how zero-sum framing affects support for global re distribution and economic openness. In a preregistered survey experiment with a large UK sample, we show that a zero-sum prime about general social and economic interactions, without reference to redistribution, reduces revealed support for international redistribution by lowering the probability of donating to an international anti-poverty NGO. Effects on stated support for global redistribution, globalization, and migration are directionally similar but not distinguishable from zero. These experimental results contrast with the positive cross sectional association between zero-sum beliefs and stated support for redistribution in our data and in prior work, cautioning against a causal interpretation of observational gradients. In an additional, independently randomized treatment, information about respondents’ position in the global income distribution offsets the donation response to the zero-sum prime. The results speak to how rising nationalist and protectionist rhetoric in high-income countries, by making zero-sum narratives salient, may shape economic and policy preferences in the population..