A Meritocratic Origin of Egalitarian Behavior

Abstract

The meritocratic fairness ideal implies that inequalities in earnings are regarded as fair only when they reflect differences in performance. Consequently, implementation of the meritocratic fairness ideal requires complete information about individual performances, but in practice, such information is often not available. We study redistributive behavior in the common, but previously understudied, situation where there is uncertainty about whether inequality is reflecting performance or luck. We show theoretically that meritocrats in such situations can become very egalitarian in their behavior, and that the degree to which this happens depends on how they trade off the probability of making mistakes and the size of mistakes that they risk making when redistributing under uncertainty. Our laboratory experiments show, in line with our model, that uncertainty about the source of inequality provides a strong egalitarian pull on the behavior of meritocrats. In addition, the external validity of our framework, and the results from the laboratory, are supported in two general population surveys conducted in the United States and Norway.

The Acceptability of Accountability

“…There are also important experimental papers by Mollerstrom and associates (Mollerstrom et al, 2015 andCappelen et al, 2019), which have some features in common with ours. Mollerstrom et al(2015) focus on two kinds of luck: option luck and brute luck.…”

“…An external dictator has to decide ex ante, for each of those different possibilities, whether or not incomes are to be equalised between that subject-pair. Cappelen et al (2019) extends the setup to one in which the external dictator is unable to tell with certainty the role of brute luck versus option luck; interestingly, subjects were significantly more egalitarian in this version. In their requirement of ex ante decision-making, covering exhaustively all possible unequal situations, this approach comes closer to ours than do many experiments in this field.…”

Redistribution and Beliefs about the Source of Income Inequality

“…Second, one could think of participants who have a fairness view that does not distinguish between the different sources of inequality contrarily to meritocrats (e.g., egalitarians or libertarians). Cappelen et al (2019) find that over 75 percent of the participants in their laboratory experiment can be described as meritocrats. This suggests about 32 participants per sessions), with each session lasting approximately 1.5 h. On average, participants earned CHF 38 (about 38 USD), which included a show up fee of CHF 10.…”

“…22 Note that some people might be libertarian such that they do not support redistribution no matter the source of income, or egalitarian, i.e., they support an equal split of income no matter the source of income. However, a recent study by Cappelen et al (2019) show that, for a vast majority of people, the source of income inequality matters for redistribution.…”

Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality

“…In this case, the sample size allows me to detect an effect size of at least 0.53. Second, one could think of participants who have a fairness view that does not distinguish between the different sources of inequality contrarily to meritocrats (e.g., egalitarians or libertarians) Cappelen et al (2019). find that over 75 percent of the participants in their laboratory experiment can be described as meritocrats.…”