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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. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:4120
Date04 1900
CreatorsPaetzel, Fabian, Sausgruber, Rupert, Traub, Stefan
PublisherWU Vienna University of Economics and Business
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePaper, NonPeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
Relationhttp://www.wu.ac.at/economics/forschung, http://epub.wu.ac.at/4120/

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