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在社会中对分配的选择的一致性。这项研究的重要性是双重的：它是对揭示的社会偏好理论的测试，并涉及宪法政治问题。实验社会科学研究做出的基本假设之一是，选择而不是结果揭示了偏好。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偏好，而不是道德或正义原则。然而，这类实验中的一个常见发现是，当假设一个决策中揭示的社会偏好适用于另一个决策时，个人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，这些不同的社会偏好在不同的决策问题中占主导地位，但基本的问题是，社会偏好是否实际上被实验中的选择所揭示。这项研究旨在通过实验测试个人对分配正义的偏好与他们在社会中对分配的选择的一致性。然而，对社会偏好一致性的研究不仅对于揭示偏好理论的假设是重要的，而且对于宪法政治中的辩论也是重要的。宪法政治确立了指导社会行动的规则或原则。为了宪法安排的稳定性，对这些原则表达的偏好与对结果的实际决定之间必须保持一致，这一点很重要。然而，如果个人经常同意分配原则，而他们反对这些原则的实际实施，那么这可能会造成对宪法的内在反对。

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.