Equality of Opportunity: Fairness Preferences and Beliefs About Inequality

Social Preferences: Fundamental Characteristics and Economic Consequences

“…efficiency costs on preferences for redistribution in a highly controlled experimental set-up that is kept constant across all countries. Several findings in Almas et al (2021; stand out (see Figure 2). First, there are huge cultural differences in the extent to which the merit treatment causes an increase in inequality acceptance relative to the luck treatment (Figure 2a).…”

“…The efficiency treatment increases inequality acceptance at most by (slightly less than) 20 percentage points. Almas et al (2021Almas et al ( , 2022 thus document the near universality of the important role of merit in redistributive preferences, including the near universality of the greater role of fairness considerations relative to efficiency considerations for redistribution.…”

“…Almas, Cappelen and Tungodden (2020) and Almas et al (2021; were the first to study the relevance of the distinction between "luck" and "effort/merit" in broad population samples. In Almas et al (2021;, they conducted a large study with 65'800 participants that comprise representative country samples taken from 60 different countries around the globe.…”

“…Almas, Cappelen and Tungodden (2020) and Almas et al (2021; were the first to study the relevance of the distinction between "luck" and "effort/merit" in broad population samples. In Almas et al (2021;, they conducted a large study with 65'800 participants that comprise representative country samples taken from 60 different countries around the globe. In each country, at least 1000 individuals participated in the experiment as impartial spectators who had the option to redistribute income between two subjects ("workers").…”