Other People's Money: Investigating Third Party Redistribution

立法者、官僚和其他人经常做出影响他人的经济决策。 法官可以要求被告向诉讼当事人支付损害赔偿金。 国会可以通过立法，对一个公民群体征税，以资助另一个群体的支出。 官僚主义者可能会以牺牲一些人的利益为代价来实施监管。 虽然经济学家、政治学家、心理学家和决策科学家都研究过群体决策，但我们对个体在这些情况下如何做出决策却知之甚少。 这项研究使用经济实验来理解这种决策。 该理论预测，如果第三方认为收入和资产是所有者赚来的，而不仅仅是财富或运气的结果，那么他或她就不太愿意重新分配这些资金。研究结果增加了我们在行为经济学、政治学、法律和社会心理学方面的科学知识。

Legislators, bureaucrats and others frequently make economic decisions that affect others. A judge may require a defendant to pay damages to a litigant. Congress may pass legislation that taxes one group of citizens to finance spending on another group. Bureaucrats may impose regulations at a cost to some people to benefit others. While economists, political scientists, psychologists, and decision scientists have studied group decision making, we do not know much about how individuals make decisions in these situations. This research uses economic experiments to understand this kind of decision making. The goal is to test implications of the equity theory of fairness, which predicts that a third party is less like to redistribute income and assets if he or she believes that these funds have been earned by the owner, rather than simply a result of fortune or luck.The results add to our scientific knowledge in behavioral economics, political science, law and social psychology.