IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/uhhwps/66.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Where do I stand in the EU? Income comparisons and perceptions

Author

Listed:
  • Bublitz, Elisabeth
  • Jäger, Julian
  • Wang, Hequn
  • Beblo, Miriam
  • Lohmann, Henning

Abstract

With a survey experiment conducted in Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden, we investigate how EU citizens rank themselves within the EU. In all four countries, (mis-)perceptions of EU income positions result primarily from respondents' (incomplete) information about their national position and their perceived country ranking within the EU. Low-income respondents tend to place themselves higher and richer respondents lower in both the national and EU income distribution. Respondents who are informed about their income position estimate their EU ranking more accurately in a follow-up survey. Our findings show that concepts of inequality at the EU level are empirically meaningful and that EU citizens have a reference frame beyond their own country.

Suggested Citation

  • Bublitz, Elisabeth & Jäger, Julian & Wang, Hequn & Beblo, Miriam & Lohmann, Henning, 2022. "Where do I stand in the EU? Income comparisons and perceptions," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 66, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:uhhwps:66
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/263990/1/1815116552.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Vladimir Gimpelson & Daniel Treisman, 2018. "Misperceiving inequality," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, March.
    4. Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2021. "Perceptions and Preferences for Redistribution," CEPR Discussion Papers 16638, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Kristoffer B Hvidberg & Claus T Kreiner & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2023. "Social Positions and Fairness Views on Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 3083-3118.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bublitz, Elisabeth & Wang, Hequn & Jäger, Julian & Beblo, Miriam & Lohmann, Henning, 2022. "Perceived income positions and attitudes towards EU inequality: A cross-country survey experiment," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 70, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.

    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. Windsteiger, Lisa, 2022. "The redistributive consequences of segregation and misperceptions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Germán Reyes & Leonardo Gasparini, 2022. "Are fairness perceptions shaped by income inequality? evidence from Latin America," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(4), pages 893-913, December.
    3. Leonardo Gasparini & Germ'an Reyes, 2022. "Are Fairness Perceptions Shaped by Income Inequality? Evidence from Latin America," Papers 2202.04591, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    4. Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M. & Krozer, Alice & Ramírez-Álvarez, Aurora A. & de la Torre, Rodolfo & Velez-Grajales, Roberto, 2022. "Perceptions of inequality and social mobility in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Barton, Jared & Pan, Xiaofei, 2022. "Movin’ on up? A survey experiment on mobility enhancing policies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Juliana Londoño-Vélez, 2022. "The Impact of Diversity on Perceptions of Income Distribution and Preferences for Redistribution," NBER Working Papers 30386, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. G. Andersen, Asbjørn & Franklin, Simon & Getahun, Tigabu & Kotsadam, Andreas & Somville, Vincent & Villanger, Espen, 2023. "Does wealth reduce support for redistribution? Evidence from an Ethiopian housing lottery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    8. Londoño-Vélez, Juliana, 2022. "The impact of diversity on perceptions of income distribution and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    9. Hoy, Christopher & Mager, Franziska, 2021. "American exceptionalism? Differences in the elasticity of preferences for redistribution between the United States and Western Europe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 518-540.
    10. Summers, Kate & Accominotti, Fabien & Burchardt, Tania & Hecht, Katharina & Mann, Liz & Mijs, Jonathan J.B, 2022. "Deliberating inequality: a blueprint for studying the social formation of beliefs about economic inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114591, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Maurice Dunaiski & Janne Tukiainen, 2023. "Does income transparency affect support for redistribution? Evidence from Finland's tax day," Discussion Papers 159, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    12. Dietmar Fehr & Yannick Reichlin, 2021. "Status, Control Beliefs, and Risk-Taking," CESifo Working Paper Series 9253, CESifo.
    13. Knell, Markus & Stix, Helmut, 2020. "Perceptions of inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    14. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Understanding Tax Policy: How do People Reason?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2309-2369.
    15. Riccardo Bruni & Alessandro Gioffré & Maria Marino, 2022. ""In-group bias in preferences for redistribution: a survey experiment in Italy"," IREA Working Papers 202223, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Nov 2023.
    16. Kerim Peren Arin & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Deni Mazrekaj & Marcel Thum, 2021. "Misperceptions and Fake News during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 9066, CESifo.
    17. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Rozo, Sandra, 2021. "How Does it Feel to Be Part of the Minority?: Impacts of Perspective Taking on Prosocial Behavior," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11599, Inter-American Development Bank.
    18. Andrew E. Clark & Maria Cotofan, 2023. "Are the upwardly mobile more left-wing?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1938, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    20. Lobeck, Max & Morten.Stostad@nhh.no, Morten Nyborg, 2023. "The Consequences of Inequality: Beliefs and Redistributive Preferences," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 17/2023, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Perceptions; Inequality; European Union; Survey Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    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:zbw:uhhwps:66. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwhamde.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.