Are peoples' distributive preferences consistent with their choices over allocations in society? - An experimental test

这项研究将通过实验测试个人对分配正义的偏好与他们对社会分配的选择的一致性。这种研究的重要性是双重的：它是对揭示性社会偏好理论的检验，并解决了宪政问题。实验社会科学研究的基本假设之一是，选择而非结果揭示了偏好。特别是，当经济实验中的受试者采取亲社会行为时，人们通常认为这些决定揭示了社会对道德或正义原则的偏好。然而，在这些实验中的一个共同发现是，当假设一个决定中揭示的社会偏好适用于另一个决定时，个体的选择在不同的决策问题上是不一致的。虽然各种研究试图通过不同的社会偏好的组合来解释这种不一致性，这些偏好在不同的决策问题中占主导地位，但社会偏好是否实际上被实验中的选择所揭示的基本问题仍然存在。本研究旨在通过实验检验个人对分配正义的偏好与其在社会中的分配选择的一致性来解决这一问题。然而，社会偏好的一致性研究不仅对显示偏好理论的假设很重要，而且对宪政辩论也很重要。宪政确立了指导社会行动的规则或原则。为了宪法安排的稳定，对这些原则的明确偏好与对结果的实际决定之间必须保持一致。然而，如果个人经常同意分配原则，他们反对实际执行，那么它可能会产生一个反对宪法的内在来源。

The study will experimentally test the consistency of individuals' preferences for distributive justice with their choices over allocations in society. The importance of such a study is twofold: It is a test of revealed social preference theory and addresses issues of constitutional politics.One of the basic assumptions made by studies in the experimental social sciences is that choices over outcomes reveal preferences. In particular, when subjects in economic experiments act pro-socially it is commonly assumed that these decisions reveal social preferences over principles of morality or justice. A common finding in such experiments is however that individuals' choices are inconsistent across different decision problems when it is assumed that social preferences revealed in one decision apply to another. Whilst various studies have attempted to explain this inconsistency through combinations of different social preferences which dominate in different decision problems, the basic issue of whether social preferences are in fact revealed by the choices made in experiments persists. This study aims to address this issue by experimentally testing the consistency of individuals' preferences for distributive justice with their choices over allocations in society.A study of the consistency of social preferences is however not just important for the assumptions of revealed preference theory but also for debates in constitutional politics. Constitutional politics establishes the rules or principles that should guide action in a society. For the stability of constitutional arrangements, it is important that a consistency between expressed preferences over these principles and actual decisions over outcomes exists. If individuals however regularly agree to allocative principles, the practical implementation of which they oppose, then it may create a build-in source of opposition to the constitution.