Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
FAIR-Centre for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality and Rationality, Norwegian School of Economics, 5045 Bergen, Norway.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Jan 18;119(3). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2109690119.
We report on a study of whether people believe that the rich are richer than the poor because they have been more selfish in life, using data from more than 26,000 individuals in 60 countries. The findings show a strong belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis at the global level; in the majority of countries, the mode is to strongly agree with it. However, we also identify important between- and within-country variation. We find that the belief in selfish rich inequality is much stronger in countries with extensive corruption and weak institutions and less strong among people who are higher in the income distribution in their society. Finally, we show that the belief in selfish rich inequality is predictive of people's policy views on inequality and redistribution: It is significantly positively associated with agreeing that inequality in their country is unfair, and it is significantly positively associated with agreeing that the government should aim to reduce inequality. These relationships are highly significant both across and within countries and robust to including country-level or individual-level controls and using Lasso-selected regressors. Thus, the data provide compelling evidence of people believing that the rich are richer because they have been more selfish in life and perceiving selfish behavior as creating unfair inequality and justifying equalizing policies.
我们报告了一项关于人们是否认为富人比穷人更富有，是因为他们在生活中更自私的研究，该研究使用了来自 60 个国家的 26000 多人的数据。研究结果表明，在全球范围内，人们强烈相信自私的富人不平等假设；在大多数国家，这种模式是强烈同意。然而，我们也发现了重要的国家间和国家内的差异。我们发现，在腐败和制度薄弱的国家，对自私的富人不平等的信念更强，而在社会收入分配较高的人群中，这种信念则较弱。最后，我们表明，对自私的富人不平等的信念可以预测人们对不平等和再分配的政策观点：它与认为自己国家的不平等不公平的观点显著正相关，也与认为政府应该致力于减少不平等的观点显著正相关。这些关系在国家间和国家内都具有高度显著性，并且在包括国家层面或个人层面的控制变量和使用套索选择回归变量时仍然稳健。因此，这些数据有力地证明了人们相信富人更富有，是因为他们在生活中更自私，并且将自私行为视为造成不公平不平等的原因，并认为平等化政策是合理的。
