Fairness and Redistribution 961
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Fairnessand Redistribution By ALBERTOALESINA AND GEORGE-MARIOSANGELETOS* Different beliefs about the fairness of social competition and what determines income inequality influence the redistributivepolicy chosen in a society. But the composition of income in equilibriumdepends on tax policies. We show how the interaction between social beliefs and welfare policies may lead to multiple equi- libria or multiplesteady states. If a society believes that individualeffort determines income, and that all have a right to enjoy thefruits of their effort, it will choose low redistributionand low taxes. In equilibrium,effort will be high and the role of luck will be limited, in which case market outcomes will be relativelyfair and social beliefs will be self-fulfilled.If instead, a society believes that luck, birth, connec- tions, and/or corruption determine wealth, it will levy high taxes, thus distorting allocations and makingthese beliefs self-sustainedas well. These insights may help explain the cross-country variation in perceptions about income inequality and choices of redistributivepolicies. (JEL D31, E62, H2, P16) Pre-tax inequality is higher in the United support the poor; an important dimension of States than in continentalWest Europeancoun- redistributionis legislation, and in particularthe tries ("Europe" hereafter). For example, the regulation of labor and productmarkets, which Gini coefficient in the pre-tax income distribu- are much more intrusive in Europe than in the tion in the United States is 38.5, while in Europe United States.1 it is 29.1. Nevertheless, redistributivepolicies The coexistence of high pre-tax inequality are more extensive in Europe,where the income and low redistributionis prima facia inconsis- tax structureis more progressiveand the overall tent with both the Meltzer-Richardparadigm of size of government is about 50 percent larger redistributionand the Mirrlees paradigmof so- (that is, about 30 versus 45 percent of GDP). cial insurance. The difference in political sup- The largest difference is indeed in transfersand port for redistributionappears, rather, to reflect other social benefits, where Europeans spend a difference in social perceptionsregarding the about twice as much as Americans. Moreover, fairness of marketoutcomes and the underlying the public budget is only one of the means to sources of income inequality. Americans be- lieve that poverty is due to bad choices or lack of effort;Europeans view poverty as a trapfrom * Alesina: Departmentof Economics, HarvardUniver- which it is hard to escape. Americans perceive sity, Cambridge,MA 02138, National Bureau of Economic wealth and success as the outcome of individual Research, and Center for Economic Policy Research talent, effort, and entrepreneurship;Europeans (e-mail: [email protected]);Angeletos: Departmentof attributea role to luck, and MassachusettsInstitute of 50 Me- larger corruption, Economics, Technology, connections. to the World Values morial Drive, Cambridge,MA 02142, and NBER (e-mail: According [email protected]).We are grateful to the editor (Douglas Survey, 60 percentof Americans versus 29 per- Bernheim), two anonymous referees, and Roland Benabou cent of Europeansbelieve that the poor could for extensive comments and suggestions. We also thank become rich if they just tried hard enough; and Daron Acemoglu, Robert Barro, Marco Bassetto, Olivier a of than Ameri- Blanchard,Peter Diamond, Glenn Ellison, Xavier Gabaix, larger proportion Europeans Ed Glaeser, Jon Gruber,Eliana La Ferrara,Roberto Perotti, cans believe that luck and connections, rather Andrei Shleifer, Guido Tabellini, Ivan Werning, and semi- than hard work, determineeconomic success. nar participantsat the MassachusettsInstitute of Technol- ogy, University of Warwick, Trinity College, Dublin, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, IGIER Bocconi, and NBER. We finally thank Arnaud 1 Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser (2004) document ex- Devleeschauwerfor excellent researchassistance and Emily tensively the sharpdifferences in redistributionbetween the Gallagherfor editorial help. United States and Europe. 960 VOL. 95 NO. 4 ALESINAAND ANGELETOS:FAIRNESS AND REDISTRIBUTION 961 Belgium 20% -SwederNetherlands France Austria Germany Den 15% Italy Norway i Ireland FinlandJnitedgdom Switz d t0% Chile CanadaJ n Portugal U.SA stralia Brazil Iceland Argentina DominicanRepublicvenezuela Turkey 0 Phnippines• 20% 40% 60% 80% Percentage who believe that luckdetermines income FIGURE1 Note: Reproducedfrom Alesina et al. (2001). This scatterplotillustrates the positive cross- country correlation between the percentage of GDP allocated to social spending and the fraction of respondentsto the World Value Survey who believe that luck determinesincome. The effect of social beliefs about how fair rewardingindividual talent and effort. Since the marketoutcomes are on actual policy choices is society cannot identify the component of an not limited to a comparisonof the United States individual's income that is due to luck and and Europe. Figure 1 shows a strong positive unworthy activities (the "noise" in the income correlation between a country's GDP share of distribution) or the component that is due to social spending and its belief that luck and talent and effort (the "signal"),the socially op- connections determineincome. This correlation timal level of redistributionis decreasing in the is easy to interpretif political outcomes reflect a "signal-to-noise ratio" in the income distribu- desire for social fairness. But, why do different tion (the ratio of justifiable to unjustifiablein- counties have such different perceptions about equality). Higher taxation, on the other hand, marketoutcomes? Who is right, the Americans distorts private incentives and leads to lower who think that effort determinessuccess, or the effort and investment. As a result, the equilib- Europeanswho think that it is mostly luck? rium signal-to-noise ratio in the income distri- In this paper, we show that it is consistent bution is itself decreasing in the level of with equilibrium behavior that luck is more redistribution. importantin one place and effort more impor- This interactionbetween the level of redistri- tant in anotherplace, even if there are no intrin- bution and the composition of inequality may sic differences in economic fundamentals lead to multiple equilibria. In the one equilib- between the two places and no distortions in rium, taxes are higher, individuals invest and people's beliefs. Both Americans and Europe- work less, and inequality is lower; but a rela- ans can thus be correctin their perceptionof the tively large shareof total income is due to luck, sources of income inequality. The key element which in turnmakes high redistributionsocially in our analysis is the idea of "social justice" or desirable. In the other equilibrium, taxes are "fairness."With these terms we capturea social lower, individuals invest and work more, and preferencefor reducingthe degree of inequality inequality is higher; but a larger fraction of induced by luck and unworthy activities, while income is due to effort ratherthan luck, which 962 THE AMERICANECONOMIC REVIEW SEPTEMBER2005 in turn sustains the lower tax rates as an form their beliefs only on the basis of their equilibrium. personal experience and cannot learn the true We should be clear from the outset that we do costs and benefits of redistribution.In Roland not mean to argue that "fundamentals"between Benabou (2000), multiplicity originates in im- Europe and the United States are identical, or perfect credit and insurancemarkets. Finally, in that the multiplicity of equilibriawe identify in Benabou and Jean Tirole (2005), multiple be- our benchmarkmodel is the only source of the liefs are possible because agents find it optimal politico-economic differences on the two sides to bias their own perception of the truth delib- of the Atlantic. Our multiple-equilibriamecha- erately so as to offset another bias, namely nism should be interpretedmore generally as a procrastination.In our paper,instead, multiplic- propagation mechanism that can help explain ity originates merely in the social desire to large and persistent differences in social out- implement fair economic outcomes and sur- comes on the basis of small differences in un- vives even when beliefs are fully unbiased, derlying fundamentals, initial conditions, or agents know the truth, and there are no impor- shocks. tant differences in capital marketsor other eco- How the different historical experiences of nomic fundamentals. the two places (which by now are largely hard- The paper is organized as follows. Section I wired in the different cultures) may explain the reviews some evidence on fairness and redistri- different attitudes and policies toward inequal- bution, which motivates our modelling ap- ity is indeed at the heart of our argument.In a proach. Section II introduces the basic static dynamic variant of our model, we consider the model. Section III analyzes the interaction of implications of the fact that wealth is transmit- economic and voting choices and derives the ted from one generation to the next through two regimes as multiple static equilibria. Sec- bequests or other sorts of parental investment. tion IV introduces intergenerationallinks and The distribution of wealth in one generation derives the two regimes as multiple steady now depends not only on the contribution of states. Section V concludes. All proofs are in effort and luck in that generation, but also