PropertyValue
?:abstract
  • This dissertation is about economic inequality and why it thrives in a country with professedly egalitarian values. I propose that people's economic behavior and policy preferences are largely driven by their understanding of deservingness. So long as a person believes that their compatriots are generally served their economic due, economic outcomes require no tampering, at least on moral grounds. People may tolerate grave inequalities--inequalities that trouble them, even--if they think those inequalities are deserved. Indeed, if outcomes appear deserved, altering them constitutes an unjust act. Resources meted to the undeserving, conversely, require correction. To begin, I show how desert unifies behavioral research into the otherwise disparate notions of justice that social scientists usually cite. Desert I treat as a social institution, one that helps resolve a common multiple-equilibria problem: the allocation of wealth and socioeconomic station. As a natural phenomenon emerging from repeated human interaction, individuals are motivated to ensure desert's reward. The precise definition of desert, however, will vary across cultures and individuals. I use surveys, survey experiments, and economic experiments to determine how different segments of the American population define economic desert. I then use those surveys and experiments to measure the extent to which different sub-populations believe that economic desert is actually rewarded. Finally, I show that these two variables--definition of economic desert and faith in its reward--shape an individual's willingness to redistribute wealth, both in the laboratory and through national policy, and often at a detriment to personal financial wellbeing. (xsd:string)
?:author
?:comment
  • (ISSP) (xsd:string)
  • http://search.proquest.com/docview/1628095801?accountid=14657 (xsd:string)
?:dataSource
  • ISSP-Bibliography (xsd:string)
?:dateModified
  • 2014 (xsd:gyear)
?:datePublished
  • 2014 (xsd:gyear)
?:duplicate
?:fromPage
  • 249 (xsd:string)
is ?:hasPart of
?:isPartOf
is ?:mainEntity of
?:name
  • What we deserve: The moral origins of economic inequality and our policy responses to it (xsd:string)
?:publicationType
  • phdthesis (xsd:string)
?:sourceInfo
  • Bibsonomy (xsd:string)
  • In Political Science, PhD, 249, 2014 (xsd:string)
?:studyGroup
  • International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) (xsd:string)
?:tags
  • 2014 (xsd:string)
  • FDZ_IUP (xsd:string)
  • ISSP (xsd:string)
  • ISSP_input2016 (xsd:string)
  • ISSP_pro (xsd:string)
  • checked (xsd:string)
  • input2016 (xsd:string)
  • isspbib2016 (xsd:string)
  • phdthesis (xsd:string)
?:toPage
  • 249 (xsd:string)
rdf:type
?:volumeNumber
  • PhD (xsd:string)