Perceptions of inequality: consequences for social networks, preferences, and trust

近几十年来，收入和财富不平等的加剧引发了公众和学术界关于其后果的激烈辩论。辩论中的一个主要担忧是，最高收入阶层的收益是以牺牲收入最低的99%的人为代价的，这可能会对社会产生广泛的影响。(日益加剧的)不平等对社交网络以及信任与合作有何影响？这如何取决于人们对不平等的看法，以及它如何与当前机会、收入和财富分配不公平的印象相互作用？不平等观念如何影响个人偏好？关于这些问题的严格证据很少，但对于了解不平等如何影响个人的行为和决定，以及这如何影响政策--从税收和转移政策到教育和医疗保健支出--是关键，这些政策正在定义社会经济和社会状况的投入。为了提供这样的证据，拟议的研究结合了两个截然不同的研究领域--个人决策和经济不平等--并试图提供不平等对社会网络、社会和风险偏好以及信任的影响的因果证据。为了避开内生性担忧，这是经验不平等研究中的主要障碍之一，我将使用随机对照试验的数据，使用具有代表性的总体样本进行实验，并进行实验室实验。对个人决策的关注将帮助我更好地涵盖不平等的不同方面，而不同的实验方法使我能够操纵和可靠地识别收入不平等的影响，并准确地指定和测试因果机制。计划项目的结果可能为不平等研究开辟新的途径，并提供重要的新见解，作为改进和完善不平等研究所需的投入。特别是，它将有助于设计更有针对性的实证调查和更有针对性的理论模型，因为这些发现可以用来重新思考、修改和缩小关于不平等后果的假设。最后，该研究计划旨在通过提供因果证据和微观层面上关于不平等后果的更具差异性的图景来为公众辩论提供信息。

The increase in income and wealth inequality in recent decades has provoked a lively public and academic debate about its consequences. A major concern in the debate is that the gains at the top income ranks come at the expense of the bottom 99 percent, which may have broad consequences on society. What are the implications of (rising) inequality on social networks and trust and cooperation? How does this depend on the perception of inequality and how does it interact with the impression that the current distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth is unfair? How do inequality perceptions affect individual preferences? Rigorous evidence on these questions is scarce but is key to understanding how individuals' behavior and decisions are influenced by inequality and how this affects policies -- ranging from taxation and transfer policies to education and health care spending -- which are defining inputs for the economic and social conditions of society. In order to provide such evidence, the proposed research combines two rather distinct fields of research -- individual decision-making and economic inequality -- and seeks to provide causal evidence of the impact of inequality on social networks, social and risk preferences, and trust. To sidestep endogeneity concerns, which are one of the main obstacles in the empirical inequality research, I will use data from a randomized controlled trial, run an experiment using a representative sample of the population, and conduct a laboratory experiment. The focus on individual decision-making will help me to better encompass different aspects of inequality, while different experimental methods allow me to manipulate and reliably identify the impact of income inequality and to exactly specify and test causal mechanisms. The results of the planned project could open new avenues of inequality research and provide important new insights needed as an input to improve and refine inequality research. In particular, it will help to design better targeted empirical inquiries and better focused theoretical models, as the findings can be used to rethink, revise, and narrow down hypotheses about the ramifications of inequality. Finally, the research program aims to inform the public debate by contributing causal evidence and a more differentiated picture about the consequences of inequality at the micro level.