This paper investigates how group deliberation changes individual distributional preferences. We experimentally assess the relative contribution of persuasion, social identity, and social comparison to shifts in preferences following deliberation. In a controlled setting, participants engaged in ten minutes of non-binding written group deliberation about distributional choices. Post-deliberation preferences became significantly more egalitarian than pre-deliberation ones. This within-subject preference shift is supported by a between-subject comparison showing that group deliberation has a larger egalitarian effect than individual deliberation. What explains this egalitarian shift? Our findings suggest that social identity formation is the primary but not unique driver of the change in preferences. Social identity appears to largely explain the pronounced egalitarian shift among participants who lose from equality, while persuasion and social comparison seem to account for the preference changes among those whose material payoffs are unaffected by the distributive outcome. These findings have important implications for the elicitation of distributional preferences and for the design of communicative institutions that precede collective decision-making.

We investigate whether people attach intrinsic value to freedom and which theoretical rules they implicitly employ to evaluate opportunity sets. To do this, we run a new survey-based study with 4902 participants across 10 different countries. Participants face various comparisons of opportunity sets in a policy-relevant context in a “spectator” position. Our main result is that an overwhelming majority of spectators reveal that they attach intrinsic value to freedom. We also find that a large majority of participants use size-based rules to rank sets in terms of freedom, while there is considerable heterogeneity in the theoretical rules they implicitly employ to rank sets in terms of welfare. These results are strikingly robust across countries.

This article introduces, and puts in context, the fourteen papers in the special issue, "Inequality perceptions and fairness judgments."

Whereas the literature on choice overload has shown that people tend to defer their choice or experience less satisfaction under choice proliferation, this paper aims to test how the profusion of choice directly affects individuals’ revealed preferences over options. To do so, we run an experiment where subjects have to compare familiar (i.e., easy, salient and relatively safe) and unfamiliar options under different choice contexts (Large or Small choice sets). We hypothesize that, as the choice set expands, the decisions become harder and more costly and subjects may find familiar items relatively more attractive. Our results provide clear evidence of set size dependence of revealed preferences: Subjects prefer familiar items more frequently in larger choice sets. This evidence is robust to a number of experimental variations and statistical controls.

We survey the empirical literature on ethical preferences, covering both survey studies and incentivized laboratory experiments. Crucial axioms such as the Pigou-Dalton transfer principle are not accepted by a large fraction of the subjects. Moreover, in formulating their distributive preferences subjects attach much importance to the sources of income differences. Their preferences behind a veil of ignorance do not coincide with their preferences in the position of a social planner. These results suggest that prioritarian policy proposals will not necessarily be supported by a majority of the population. Although the majority opinion does not necessarily reflect the ethically desirable perspective, the empirical results still raise some interesting normative challenges.

This paper aims to investigate the motives behind an intrinsic value of decision rights. Based on a series of experimental treatments conducted in France and Japan, we measure how much of such potential value stems from (i) a desire for independence from others, (ii) a desire for power, or (iii) a desire for self-reliance. We find that both Japanese and French subjects attach a significant intrinsic value to hold control. Surprisingly, we find that self-reliance is the only significant motive behind it in both countries.

This paper investigates experimentally how people value choice. Our experiments elicit subjects’ valuations of various choice sets (or menus) that differ in size and composition. The comparison of these valuations allows us to assess subjects’ preferences between sets and test a number of the theories of preferences over menus proposed in the literature. The results suggest that subjects are choice-averse: the value of a choice set is significantly and robustly lower than that of its preferred element, and adding a suboptimal option reduces the value of a set. The data also reveal that the quality of suboptimal elements has a positive effect on set preferences. Taken together, these results suggest two possible explanations. The first is that individuals fear making bad decisions in the final choice; the second is that people value choice sets heuristically as a whole, and not on the basis of their final consequences. Other explanations of choice aversion that appear in the literature are not fully consistent with the behavior we observe.

The aim of this paper is to investigate how people value tax progressivity. More precisely, I study the potential trade-off between any improvement in the final income distribution and the progressivity of the tax schedule. To do this, I designed survey experiments in which respondents were asked to rank or to choose between different taxation-redistribution schemes with different treatments varying in terms of information availability: (1) when only information about final incomes is provided; and (2) when information about average tax rates is also available. Using a within-subject design, the instability of rankings between (1) and (2) indicates whether or not respondents value tax progressivity. I find that information about tax rates significantly affects respondents' judgments about tax schemes. They exhibit a strong preference for tax progressivity, i.e., they accept a fall in the quality of the final income distribution in exchange for progressive taxation. The results of an additional treatment suggest that the mere fact of providing new information cannot account for this finding.

This paper studies why individuals adopt conformist consumption behavior. More precisely, we pay attention to intrinsic preference for conformity: individuals preferences tend to converge on the others' ones, even if there is no uncertainty about the quality of goods and individual choices can not be observed. For this purpose, we run an experiment, in which subjects report the satisfaction provided by two goods tested in the laboratory and then a monetary valuation. In a first treatment, subjects are "isolated," while, in a second one, an information about choice made by other subjects are provided before they give monetary valuations to both goods. Our results show that subjects are sensitive to the choice made by others in an asymmetric way. When subjects report a greater satisfaction for the good that is also chosen by others, this information does not affect the monetary valuations of goods. On the contrary, subjects differing from others in taste tend to reduce the gap between the valuation of the preferred good and the one of the other.

Cet article étudie pourquoi certains individus ont tendance à adopter des comportements de consommation conformistes. Plus précisément, notre attention se porte sur l’analyse des préférences intrinsèques pour la conformité : les préférences des individus auraient tendance à converger vers celles des autres, même dans des contextes où il n’existe pas d’incertitude quant à la qualité des biens et où les choix des individus ne peuvent être observés. Pour cela, nous avons conçu une expérience au cours de laquelle les sujets reportaient la satisfaction procurée par deux biens usuels testés en laboratoire, puis en donnaient une évaluation monétaire. Dans un premier traitement, les sujets étaient « isolés », alors que dans un deuxième traitement, une information sur le choix effectué par d’autres sujets leur était fournie juste avant les évaluations monétaires des biens. Nos résultats montrent que les sujets sont sensibles au choix des autres de manière asymétrique. Lorsque les sujets rapportent une plus grande satisfaction pour le bien également choisi par les autres, cette information n’affecte pas la valorisation monétaire des biens. En revanche, les sujets ayant des goûts différents de ceux des autres ont tendance à réduire la différence de valorisation entre le bien préféré et l’autre.

This paper aims to study the extent to which people’s intuitions about the distribution of two attributes within a society are consistent with the different axiomatizations proposed by economists. In particular, the objective is to compare the empirical support for two alternative principles, namely aversion to dispersion of attributes and aversion to correlation between attributes. Using a questionnaire approach, most people are found to be averse to correlation rather than averse to dispersion.

In this paper, we theoretically characterize robust empirically implementable normative criteria for evaluating socially risky situations. Socially risky situations are modeled as distributions, among individuals, of lotteries on a finite set of state-contingent pecuniary consequences. Individuals are assumed to have selfish Von Neumann–Morgenstern preferences for these socially risky situations. We provide empirically implementable criteria that coincide with the unanimity, over a reasonably large class of such individual preferences, of anonymous and Pareto-inclusive Von Neuman Morgenstern social rankings of risks. The implementable criteria can be interpreted as sequential expected poverty dominance. An illustration of the usefulness of the criteria for comparing the exposure to unemployment risk of different segments of the French and US workforce is also provided.

This paper aims to study the extent to which people's intuitions about the distribution of two attributes within a society are consistent with the different axiomatizations proposed by the economists. In particular, the objective is to compare two alternative principles, namely aversion to dispersion of attributes and aversion to correlation between attributes. By using a questionnaire approach, most people are found to be more averse to correlation rather than averse to dispersion.

This paper investigates how people value choice. The experiment consists of eliciting subjects’ willingness to accept for various choice sets. This approach allows us to assess whether prior to making their decision, people appreciate a wider set of options or not. In contrast with the existing literature, our experimental protocol controsl for several parameters usually left aside and provides an environment where usual explanations are unlikely to hold, e.g., complexity of task. Our results suggest that on average individuals are choice averse: the value of a choice set is significantly and robustly lower than the one of its preferred element. JEL Code : C91 ; D03 ; D63

This article provides a robust normative appraisal of the Canadian equalization transfers system. The two-dimensional dominance criteria introduced by Atkinson and Bourguignon (RES, 1982) are used to compare the distributions of private and public goods before and after equalization payments. Because the distribution before equalization is not observable, it is simulated on the basis of various scenarios that specify both its financing by the federal government and its utilization by provincial governments. The main result of the paper is that, for most scenarios, equalization transfers have an ambiguous normative impact on the distribution of well-being among Canadians and that, for some scenarios, equalization transfers actually worsen this distribution of well-being.

This paper contrasts conventional real GDP and price indicators of individual living standard, interpreted as revealing information on individual welfare, with others, that aim at reflecting individual freedom. It is argued that freedom-based indices are easier to use and interpret than traditional real GDPones. Illustrations of the differences between the two classes of indices are provided for international comparisons, as well as for the evaluation of growth and inflation in France.