Economic status and acknowledgement of earned entitlement

Barr, Abigail; Burns, Justine; Moya, Luis Miguel Miller; Shaw, Ingrid

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.02.012

Cited by 52 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…One way to interpret this pattern is that once they know that they perform low, people favor a norm of equality (in low-performing groups, subjects are punished for not choosing the equal distribution both in Low|A and Low|B); otherwise, they favor a norm of entitlement (in high-performing groups, subjects are punished for not choosing the equal distribution in High|A but not in High|B). This interpretation fits with the results of Barr et al (2015), who show that an individual's tendency to acknowledge earned entitlement is associated with his or her economic status relative to others. Note that this behavior is difficult to reconcile with simple inequality aversion.…”

supporting

confidence: 89%

Entitlements and Loyalty in Groups: An Experimental Study

Paetzel

Sausgruber

2016

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWe study loyalty in groups that are exogenously assigned based on members' performances in a task. We observe that in-group bias is strong and significant among subjects who score high in performance, and that it is weak and insignificant among those who score low. This asymmetric pattern is mirrored in the punishment of disloyal subjects within groups. The results are consistent with an explanation according to which fairness judgments depend on entitlement considerations and provide a new perspective on theory and empirical research that argues that group identity increases with the status of the group. JEL: C92, D31, D63

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supporting

confidence: 89%

Entitlements and Loyalty in Groups: An Experimental Study

Paetzel

Sausgruber

2016

SSRN Journal

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“…In contrast, unemployed individuals tended not to acknowledge earned entitlement (18). If becoming unemployed causes individuals to acknowledge earned entitlement less or not at all, in the DJ game, we should observe the following: (i) participants not or minimally conditioning allocations on initial endowments in the random treatment, regardless of the year and their employment status; (ii) participants significantly conditioning allocations on initial endowments in the earned treatment in year 1, regardless of whether they subsequently became unemployed; (iii) participants who stayed employed or in full-time education also significantly conditioning allocations on initial endowments in the earned treatment in year 2; and (iv) participants who became unemployed either ceasing to condition or reducing the extent to which they condition allocations on initial endowments in the earned treatment in year 2.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In previous studies involving similar tasks (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25), students and employed individuals in developed countries acknowledged earned entitlement. In contrast, unemployed individuals tended not to acknowledge earned entitlement (18).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Moral consequences of becoming unemployed

Barr

Moya

Úbeda

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We test the conjecture that becoming unemployed erodes the extent to which a person acknowledges earned entitlement. We use behavioral experiments to generate incentive-compatible measures of individuals' tendencies to acknowledge earned entitlement and incorporate these experiments in a two-stage study. In the first stage, participants' acknowledgment of earned entitlement was measured by engaging them in the behavioral experiments, and their individual employment status and other relevant socioeconomic characteristics were recorded. In the second stage, a year later, the process was repeated using the same instruments. The combination of the experimentally generated data and the longitudinal design allows us to investigate our conjecture using a difference-in-difference approach, while ruling out the pure selfinterest confound. We report evidence consistent with a large, negative effect of becoming unemployed on the acknowledgment of earned entitlement.U nderstanding how becoming unemployed affects people's reasoning is important. Unemployment and the poverty it engenders is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, low subjective well-being and self-esteem, heightened aversion to risk, and a greater tendency to discount the future within the individual (1-7), and higher rates of suicide, murder, and alcoholrelated death across countries (8, 9). We investigate a different kind of effect, a moral consequence of unemployment that, alongside unemployment's effects on mental health, could explain why people are disengaging from the labor market (10). We test the conjecture that becoming unemployed erodes the extent to which a person acknowledges earned entitlement, i.e., acknowledges an individual's right to keep, consume, or dispose of that which was gained through his or her own effort or endeavor. This right and its acknowledgment underpins labor market functioning and guides taxation and government-spending policy worldwide (11).Survey-based studies find a positive association between low economic status and stated preferences for redistributive taxation and spending (12-16). However, although these surveybased results are consistent with our conjecture, they are also consistent with pure self-interest; purely self-interested individuals would state a preference for minimal or no redistribution when they are relatively well-off as this would minimize their tax burden, but would shift to favoring redistribution on becoming relatively poor owing to job loss (17).We used behavioral experiments to generate incentivecompatible measures of individuals' tendencies to acknowledge earned entitlement that cannot be driven by pure self-interest (18). We incorporated these experiments into an unusual two-stage study. In the first stage, participants' acknowledgment of earned entitlement was measured by engaging them in the behavioral experiments, and their individual employment status and other relevant socioeconomic characteristics were recorded. In the second stage, a year later, the process was repeated using the sa...

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“…Our first hypothesis is a manipulation check: we verify that participants who performed well in the preliminary mathematical task allocate more money to themselves on average. This hypothesis is supported by the literature on earned roles and earned endowment, whereby participants who earn the money to be distributed or earn the role of decision-maker feel entitled to a larger share of the surplus generated (Hoffman et al, 1994;Oxoby & Spraggon, 2008;Barr et al, 2015;Dasgupta, 2011). In our experiment, participants were told of their result in the mathematical test only in the "Rank" and "Vote+Rank" treatments.…”

Section: Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 81%

The Social Preferences of Democratically Elected Decision Makers and the Conflict between Wealth Generation and Distribution

Gaudeul

Keser

2017

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe run a laboratory experiment where some participants are selected to make investment decisions on behalf of others. We test whether a democratic context influences the social preferences of decision makers in terms of efficiency, altruism and concern for inequality. We find that decision makers who are selected democratically are generally more efficiency-oriented, but also more altruistic, than leaders who are selected at random or by ability. Because wealth generation and distribution sometime conflict, efficiency is no higher with democratic leaders, although payoffs are more equal. We interpret our results in terms of a democratic norm that mitigates how elections may otherwise lead to an enhanced feeling of entitlement to one's role. We exclude a selection effect and discuss the drivers of our results in terms of belief in the legitimacy of the selection procedure and reduced social distance.JEL Codes: C91, D63, D64

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Economic status and acknowledgement of earned entitlement

Cited by 52 publications

References 20 publications

Entitlements and Loyalty in Groups: An Experimental Study

Entitlements and Loyalty in Groups: An Experimental Study

Moral consequences of becoming unemployed

The Social Preferences of Democratically Elected Decision Makers and the Conflict between Wealth Generation and Distribution

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