Maj-Britt Sterba

Abstract:  This paper establishes three novel findings on fairness and redistribution by combining theory-driven experimental games with large-scale surveys in the U.S. and five European countries. First, individuals revealing egalitarian, libertarian, or meritocratic fairness preferences in experimental games show large differences in support for tax and transfer policies. Second, beliefs in merit strongly predict policy support among meritocrats, but are less predictive among non-meritocrats. Third, fairness concerns matter across income groups and political camps. Our findings challenge the assumptions that meritocratic preferences are homogeneous, that fairness is a luxury good, and that fairness is mainly a moral foundation of left voters. 

Abstract: Despite scientific consensus, beliefs in human-driven climate change are often influenced by political orientation. Although this political polarization of beliefs may stall mitigation policies, few studies have investigated politicians’ beliefs in human-driven climate change compared to citizens. This study explores how political orientation affects belief in climate change and policy support among politicians (\textit{N} = 714) and citizens (\textit{N} = 18,281) in eight developed democracies (Australia, Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia separately), Czechia, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway). In all countries, we find weaker belief in human-driven climate change among right-leaning politicians and citizens. This polarization was even stronger among politicians, for whom belief in climate change mediates the impact of political orientation on mitigation policy support. Our findings highlight the need to debias beliefs and realign politicians' and voters' views about climate change to promote mitigation.

Abstract: The modern world is characterized by immense inequalities in living standards across countries, raising the question of what, if anything, we owe to each other on a global scale. One trigger for moral obligations that has been widely discussed in political philosophy is cooperation for mutual benefit. Using an experimental vignette study, we investigate whether people perceive large-scale economic cooperation for mutual benefit as a trigger for a moral responsibility to redistribute resources. Our design focuses on differences in moral responsibility depending on the level of help provided, reflecting the idea that some obligations are relationship-specific, while others are not. Our main finding is that a prior cooperative relationship significantly increases the perceived moral responsibility to redistribute resources, and this increase is more pronounced for distributions that go beyond providing for basic needs. The effect of more extensive redistribution is partly mediated by a lower perceived social distance between cooperators. Our results imply that making the cooperative nature of economic interactions more salient might broaden the scope of people’s moral concerns towards cooperators.

Abstract: This paper investigates preferences for economic redistribution among politicians and citizens across seven countries, using original survey data collected from members of par-liament and representative samples of the public. We compare attitudes toward redistribu-tion and taxation and examine how these are shaped by fairness beliefs, inequality percep-tions, political ideology, and demographic characteristics. Our findings show that fairnessbeliefs and political ideology are the primary drivers of redistribution preferences in both groups, while perceptions of inequality significantly influence citizens but not politicians. Moreover, politicians hold more polarized views on redistribution than citizens, even within the same party family. These results underscore a substantial divergence between political elites and the general public in their support for redistributive policies.

Abstract: When do legislators respond to voters’ support for a policy? We argue that politicians are more likely to align with voter preferences for policies within their jurisdiction, where ignoring voter support can entail political costs. Political costs refer to a politician’s loss of electoral support when their stance on a policy deviates from the majority support for that policy in the electorate. Using a randomized survey experiment with 535 German state legislators, we examine how information about voter support affects policymakers’ support for two policy reforms—one at the state level and one at the national level. Our findings support the relevance of political costs: legislators who received voter information were at least 9 percentage points more likely to support the state-level reform, while no significant effect exists for the national-level reform. By specifying the conditions for responsiveness, the paper contributes to questions of representation and accountability in legislative behavior.

Abstract: Research on social policy and target populations holds that group perceptions affect the allocation of benefits and burdens. Building on theories of social construction, we investigate which social groups legislators perceive as powerful and deserving, and how these perceptions translate into discussions of policy design. Our research design employs a novel combination of closed and open-ended questions in a field survey with over 500 elected representatives. Legislators classify recipient groups in terms of their power and deservingness and then express policy preferences for these groups. A text analysis of open-ended questions focusing on policies for people with disabilities and with addictions – where the former is perceived as more deserving than the latter – shows that group perceptions influence discussions of policy design: legislators discuss general treatment and benefits for disabled people at greater length than for addicts. Using embedding regression, we demonstrate that different perceptions of power and deservingness shift the meaning of relevant target words for both social groups. Policymakers' conceptions of recipient groups inform their policy preferences. 

Abstract: Three determining factors for economic inequality are self-chosen effort, self-chosen risk, and external circumstances. The fairness people assign to inequalities due to effort and external circumstances is widely studied. Insights on the fairness of inequalities due to self-chosen effort and self-chosen risk, however, are lacking. I study a novel experimental setting where inequality is due to a choice over effort-provision and a choice over risk-taking. While the resulting inequality is mostly seen as fair, around 10% of third-party redistribution decisions are in line with a fairness norm that only considers the choice over effort.

Abstract: Research on citizens shows that normative views about what constitutes a fair distribution of economic outcomes affect inequality perceptions and support for redistribution. Yet it is legislators - and their normative views - who ultimately determine political responses to inequality. We study the fairness preferences of elected politicians in six advanced democracies using an experimental distribution game. Across countries and ideological lines, a clear majority of legislators act as meritocrats: they redistribute more when inequality stems from luck than when it stems from merit. Compared to citizens, legislators are more likely to distinguish between the sources of inequality - 70\% of politicians act as meritocrats, compared to 50\% of citizens. However, especially among legislators, left- and right-leaning meritocrats differ systematically in how much they differentiate between different sources of inequality and in whether they think that economic outcomes in society actually stem from merit. Overall, our study reveals the normative foundations that guide legislators’ responses to economic inequality, highlighting both a broad cross-partisan commitment to meritocratic fairness principle and persistent ideological divides in its application.