Journal Article
An Experimental Study on Individual Choice, Social Welfare, and Social Preferences
European Economic Review (subject to minor revision)
Authors
Publication Date
JEL Classification
C91
D31
D63
Key Words
We experimentally study subjects’ compliance with dominance relationships of income distributions in a ranking task. The experiment consisted of four different treatments: lottery, individual choice, social preferences, and social planner. Our results suggest that people’s risk attitudes do not adequately reflect their inequality attitudes. Uninvolved social planners exhibit randomization preferences, while self-interested social planners are generally more inequality averse and try to avoid extreme outcomes.
