How Property Shapes Distributional Preferences

Arbeitspapier

We study how distributional preferences are affected by a major property rights reform that transformed informal use-rights over land traditionally characterizing rural Beninese villages in a system akin to private ownership. The design combines the randomized control-trial implementation of the reform across villages with lab-in-the-field experiments eliciting villagers' distributional choices – both when luck is the source of situational inequality and when an unequal distribution is originated by merit considerations. Results show that reforming allocation rules in the direction of impersonal market-alike institutions increases participants' acceptance of inequality determined by luck, while leaving participants' tolerance for inequality generated by merit unaffected.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14768

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Field Experiments ; Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
• Subject: fairness ; institutional change ; lab-in-the-field experiment ; land tenure reform ; land titling

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fabbri, Marco ; Bigoni, Maria
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/250429
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET