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Social Preferences and Voting on Reform: An Experimental Study

Debating over efficiency-enhancing but inequality-increasing reforms accounts for the routine business of democratic institutions. Fernandez and Rodrik (1991) hold that anti-reform bias can be attributed to individual-specific uncertainty regarding the distribution of gains and losses resulting from a reform. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate that anti-reform bias arising from uncertainty is mitigated by social preferences. We show that, paradoxically, many who stand to lose from reforms vote in favor because they value efficiency, while many who will potentially gain from reforms oppose them due to inequality aversion.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:5757
Date05 April 2014
CreatorsPaetzel, Fabian, Sausgruber, Rupert, Traub, Stefan
PublisherElsevier
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, PeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
Relationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.03.010, https://www.journals.elsevier.com/european-economic-review, https://www.elsevier.com/journals/european-economic-review/0014-2921/open-access-options, http://epub.wu.ac.at/5757/

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