Fairness in winner-take-all markets

Arbeitspapier

The paper reports the first experimental study on people's fairness views on extreme income inequalities arising from winner-take-all reward structures. We find that the majority of participants consider extreme income inequality generated in winner-take-all situations as fair, independent of the winning margin. Spectators appear to endorse a "factual merit" fairness argument for no redistribution: the winner deserves all the earnings because these earnings were determined by his or her performance. Our findings shed light on the present political debate on redistribution, by suggesting that people may object less to certain types of extreme income inequality than commonly assumed.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 287

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Subject: Winner-take-all reward structures ; fairness ; income inequality ; Soziale Gerechtigkeit ; Einkommensverteilung ; Experimentelle Ökonomik ; Experiment ; Norwegen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bartling, Björn ; Cappelen, Alexander W. ; Ekström, Mathias ; Sørensen, Erik Ø. ; Tungodden, Bertil
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Zurich, Department of Economics
• (where): Zurich
• (when): 2018

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.5167/uzh-151317
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/192896
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET