There are striking differences in inequality and redistribution between
the United States and Scandinavia. To study whether there are
corresponding differences in social preferences, we conducted a
large-scale international social preference experiment where Americans
and Norwegians make distributive choices in identical environments.
Combining the infrastructure of an international online labor market and
that of a leading international data collection agency, we show that
Americans and Norwegians differ significantly in fairness views, but not
in the importance assigned to efficiency. In particular, we find that
Americans accept significantly more inequality than Norwegians, even
when they make distributive choices in identical situations. The study
also provides general insights into the nature of social preferences. We
provide causal evidence suggesting that fairness considerations are more
fundamental for inequality acceptance than efficiency considerations. In
both countries, merit instead of luck as the source of inequality causes
a huge increase in inequality acceptance, while the introduction of a
cost of redistribution has a negligible effect on the distributive
choices of the participants.
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