It is Hobbes, not Rousseau: an experiment on voting and redistribution

Mostra el registre complet Registre parcial de l'ítem

• dc.contributor.author Cabrales, Antonio
• dc.contributor.author Nagel, Rosemarie
• dc.contributor.author Rodríguez Mora, José V.
• dc.date.accessioned 2021-03-01T09:05:21Z
• dc.date.available 2021-03-01T09:05:21Z
• dc.date.issued 2012
• dc.description.abstract We perform an experiment which provides a laboratory replica of some important features of the welfare state. In the experiment, all individuals in a group decide whether to make a costly effort, which produces a random (independent) outcome for each one of them. The group members then vote on whether to redistribute the resulting and commonly known total sum of earnings equally amongst themselves. This game has two equilibria, if played once. In one of them, all players make effort and there is little redistribution. In the other one, there is no effort and nothing to redistribute. A solution to the repeated game allows for redistribution and high effort, sustained by the threat to revert to the worst of these equilibria. Our results show that redistribution with high effort is not sustainable. The main reason for the absence of redistribution is that rich agents do not act differently depending on whether the poor have worked hard or not. The equilibrium in which redistribution may be sustained by the threat of punishing the poor if they do not exert effort is not observed in the experiment. Thus, the explanation of the behavior of the subjects lies in Hobbes, not in Rousseau.en
• dc.description.sponsorship We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation under grants CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 CSD2006-0016 (all authors), ECO2009-10531 (Cabrales), ECO2008-01768 (Nagel) and the Comunidad de Madrid under grant Excelecon (Cabrales), the Generalitat de Catalunya and the CREA program (Nagel), and project SEJ2007-64340 of Spain’s Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Rodríguez Mora).
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Cabrales A, Nagel R, Rodríguez Mora JV. It is Hobbes, not Rousseau: an experiment on voting and redistribution. Exp Econ. 2012 Jun;15(2):278-308. DOI: 10.1007/s10683-011-9300-x
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9300-x
• dc.identifier.issn 1386-4157
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46620
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Springer
• dc.relation.ispartof Experimental Economics. 2012 Jun;15(2):278-308
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PN/CSD2006-0016
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/3PN/ECO2009-10531
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/3PN/ECO2008-01768
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PN/SEJ2007-64340
• dc.rights © Springer The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9300-x
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.subject.keyword Redistributionen
• dc.subject.keyword Political equilibriumen
• dc.subject.keyword Votingen
• dc.subject.keyword Multiple equilibriaen
• dc.subject.keyword Experimentsen
• dc.title It is Hobbes, not Rousseau: an experiment on voting and redistributionen
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion