Knowledge, Power, and Self-interest
- Author(s)
- Bernhard Kittel, Georg Kanitsar, Stefan Traub
- Abstract
The paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment assessing the impact of social position (endowment) and power (structurally advantaged or disadvantaged network positions) on redistributive decisions, which involve a classical efficiency-equality trade-off. The experiment involves three decision conditions: veil of ignorance, informed dictator, and majority vote. We use a three-person social-preference model in order to derive hypotheses on the effect of knowledge and power on tax choices. Our results confirm that disclosing the social position raises the measured self-interest (Knowledge Effect) and that mandating a majority vote results in concessions, the size of which depends on the player's structural position in the network (Power Effect).
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Economic Sociology
- External organisation(s)
- Helmut Schmidt Universität / Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg
- Journal
- Journal of Public Economics
- Volume
- 150
- Pages
- 39-52
- No. of pages
- 14
- ISSN
- 0047-2727
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.04.004
- Publication date
- 06-2017
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 502057 Experimental economics, 502010 Public finance
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics, Finance
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/knowledge-power-and-selfinterest(886e23b3-125f-4685-8423-4e385f6b38c6).html