I. Almås, A. Cappelen, E. Sørensen, & B. Tungodden
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Jan 2022, 119 (3) e2109690119;
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2109690119
Abstract
We report on a study of whether people believe that the rich are richer than the poor because they have been more selfish in life, using data from more than 26,000 individuals in 60 countries. The findings show a strong belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis at the global level; in the majority of countries, the mode is to strongly agree with it. However, we also identify important between- and within-country variation. We find that the belief in selfish rich inequality is much stronger in countries with extensive corruption and weak institutions and less strong among people who are higher in the income distribution in their society. Finally, we show that the belief in selfish rich inequality is predictive of people’s policy views on inequality and redistribution: It is significantly positively associated with agreeing that inequality in their country is unfair, and it is significantly positively associated with agreeing that the government should aim to reduce inequality. These relationships are highly significant both across and within countries and robust to including country-level or individual-level controls and using Lasso-selected regressors. Thus, the data provide compelling evidence of people believing that the rich are richer because they have been more selfish in life and perceiving selfish behavior as creating unfair inequality and justifying equalizing policies.
Significance
People’s beliefs about why the rich are richer than the poor have the potential to affect both policy attitudes and economic development. We provide global evidence showing that where the fortunes of the rich are perceived to be the result of selfish behavior, inequality is viewed as unfair, and there is stronger support for income redistribution. However, we also observe that belief in selfish rich inequality is highly polarized in many countries and thus a source of political disagreement that might be detrimental to economic development. We find systematic country differences in the extent to which people believe that selfishness is a source of inequality, which sheds light on international differences in public morality, civic virtues, and redistributive policies.
From the Discussion
An interesting question is how the belief in selfish rich inequality relates to the actual selfishness of the rich. To shed some light on this relationship, we use self-reported data from the 2018 Gallup World Poll on whether people last month donated money to a charity. In most countries, we find that the rich are more likely to have donated money than the poor, which is not surprising, given that the rich have more money than the poor. However, in SI Appendix, Fig. S8, we show that there is a negative relationship between the belief in selfish rich inequality and the extent to which donating money correlates with the income rank in society (β=−0.055,t57=−2.52, P = 0.014). Hence, the data suggest that the rich are less willing to donate money in countries where people believe there to be selection of selfish people into becoming rich.
