Knowledge, Power, and Self-interest

Autor(en)

Bernhard Kittel, Georg Kanitsar, Stefan Traub

Abstrakt

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(en)

Institut für Wirtschaftssoziologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Helmut Schmidt Universität / Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg

Journal

Journal of Public Economics

Band

150

Seiten

39-52

Anzahl der Seiten

14

ISSN

0047-2727

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.04.004

Publikationsdatum

06-2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

502057 Experimentelle Ökonomie, 502010 Finanzwissenschaft

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Economics and Econometrics, Finance

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/knowledge-power-and-selfinterest(886e23b3-125f-4685-8423-4e385f6b38c6).html