Are People Inequality Averse, and Do They Prefer Redistribution by the State? Evidence from German Longitudinal Data on Life Satisfaction

Arbeitspapier

We link life-satisfaction data to inequality of the pre- and post-government income distribution at the regional level, to estimate the degree of inequality aversion. Three different inequality measures are used. In addition, we investigate whether a reduction in inequality by the state increases individual well-being. We find only weak evidence that Germans are inequality averse. Inequality reduction by the state does not increase wellbeing. On the contrary, inequality reduction imposes an excess burden on middle-income earners. The paper uses data from the German Socio-economic Panel Study (GSOEP) from 1985 to 1998.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: DIW Discussion Papers ; No. 407

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models ; General Welfare; Well-Being ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Subject: Inequality aversion ; redistribution ; life satisfaction ; panel data ; Einkommensverteilung ; Soziale Werte ; Einkommensumverteilung ; Lebensqualität ; Schätzung ; Deutschland ; Lebenszufriedenheit

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schwarze, Johannes ; Härpfer, Marco
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2004

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/18103
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET