Research
Research
Job Market Paper
Market Luck: Skill-Biased Inequality and Redistributive Preferences, with Simona Sartor.
[Draft]
Market forces beyond individual control are a central driver of income inequality, a phenomenon we call market luck. In experiments in the US, France, and China, we study whether people perceive inequalities from random market shocks as fair. Individuals are more accepting of inequalities due to market luck than to brute luck, even while recognizing that both are completely beyond workers’ control. We identify a novel mechanism underlying this pattern and show that it generalizes to more natural contexts, with experimental behavior also predicting support for real-world policies. These results help explain the muted demand for redistribution amid rising inequality.
Publications
Whose Preferences Matter for Redistribution: Cross-Country Evidence, with Alain Cohn, Raymond Fisman, and Michel Maréchal.
Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics, 2025, Vol. 3 (1), pp. 1-24.
[Article] [NBER Working Paper] [Replication Package]
Using cross-sectional data from 93 countries, we investigate the relationship between the desired level of redistribution among citizens from different socioeconomic backgrounds and the actual extent of government redistribution. Our focus on redistribution arises from the inherent class conflicts it engenders in policy choices, allowing us to examine whose preferences are reflected in policy formulation. Contrary to prevailing assumptions regarding political influence, we find that the preferences of the lower socioeconomic group, rather than those of the median or upper strata, are most predictive of realized redistribution. This finding contradicts the expectations of both leading experts and regular citizens.
Working Papers
Billionaire Superstar: Public Image and Demand for Taxation, with Ricardo Perez-Truglia.
[NBER Working Paper]
In the United States, there are 741 billionaires with a combined net worth of $5.2 trillion. These billionaires live highly public lives, with some achieving superstar status. Despite growing inequality, billionaires face effective tax rates lower than the average American. Is this due to a lack of public support for taxation? Is it due to misperceptions about billionaires' lives and careers? To address these questions, we conducted a survey experiment with a sample of 9,013 Americans. We designed multiple treatments based on research on preferences for redistribution and arguments made by academics, journalists, and the general public to increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy. Our findings reveal significant misperceptions about billionaires, with individuals updating their beliefs in response to information. Contrary to expert predictions that all treatments would positively affect the demand for taxation, most treatments have a null or negative effect. Providing information about the lavish lifestyles of billionaires does have a robust positive effect on the demand for taxation.
Mission Possible: Data Quality in Online Surveys, with Can Çelebi, Christine Exley, Sören Harrs, Hannu Kivimaki, and Marta Serra-Garcia
[Current Draft]
High-quality data is essential to social science research. Online experiments and surveys are a central tool for data collection across many disciplines, but their data quality could be lacking, due to the presence of automated agents, participants who use LLMs without researcher knowledge, and inattentive participants. We identify behavioral patterns that can serve as data quality checks by collecting data from human subjects in the lab, automated agents, and online survey platforms. We further propose the two-stage recruitment method by which researchers first implement a short survey on their target sample and use checks to exclude plausibly low-quality responses. We test the method with a set of checks and demonstrate how data quality can improve with this method.
Work in Progress
Social Status Perceptions and Political Preferences, with Sören Harrs.
Pilot data collected.