Lots more in the paper, especially on methodology. There are universes of arguments on immigration, climate policy, etc - we hope others will find them.
Attached: Our conclusion (including a representative Norwegian externality argument).
Link to paper: dropbox.com/scl/fi/hchhf...
Overall, we document two distinct ways to argue for redistribution, the prevalence of which differs across countries.
In short, the way we talk about inequality differs.
Fairness arguments trigger more outrage, however.
Finally, we find an educational divide. Fairness is more convincing to less-educated respondents + are used more by legislators from less-educated areas. This is consistent with externality arguments being relatively complicated.
Perhaps Americans simply don't find externality arguments convincing?
To explore this we elicit arguments in a controlled survey experiment, then collect 32,680 evaluations of them.
And no - fairness and externality arguments are equally convincing to U.S. survey respondents.
This holds across the political spectrum.
Conditional on making pro-redistributive arguments, every Norwegian party relies more on externality arguments than either U.S. party.
So what? Pro-redistributive arguments are largely about fairness, surely?
Yes, but only in the US - where only 13% of redistributive excerpts include an externality argument. In Norway, the equivalent number is 37%.
Externalities are key in the Norwegian debate.
First, we analyze all speeches in the U.S. Congress and Norwegian Storting between 2015-22 with 4 million LLM calls.
Fairness arguments are emotional, angry, and compassionate across settings.
Externality arguments are logical and consensus-seeking, using empirical evidence.
Our aim in this paper is to compare universes of arguments. We do so across countries, but also across argument types.
We focus on pro-redistributive arguments based on
(i) fairness, and
(ii) inequality's societal consequences ("inequality externalities", e.g. trust, crime...)
NEW paper w. Max Lobeck & Chloé de Meulenaer:
How do people in the United States and Norway argue for redistribution?
In the U.S., pro-redistributive arguments mainly appeal to fairness. In Norway, arguments about the societal consequences of inequality are central.
Thread ↓
"Our main suggestion is to treat economic inequality itself as an externality, which has wide-ranging implications for classical economic theory." @mortenstostad.bsky.social #EconSky
pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271705/1-s2....
Research by @mortenstostad.bsky.social & Lobeck finds most say rising inequality fuels many social ills — while narrowing it boosts trust, well‑being, democracy, public services, growth & innovation. #EconSky
Could giving $1,000 to the poor and $2,000 to the rich be a progressive policy?
Yes.
(For legal purposes I do not endorse this policy)
According to the latest BEA data for Q4 2024, profits booked in Ireland by US multinationals have bounced back and reached a new high.
The UK and Singapore are now nearly as important for US multinationals' profits as the Netherlands. Profits booked in Mexico and Canada remain relatively small.
It is even possible that inequality could have _positive_ externality effects, increasing innovation and growth.
Students are not taught this idea either. Societal functioning is implicitly kept entirely separate from the economic distribution.
Surely no one believes this.
It makes zero sense that students leave their degrees thinking inequality is a pure equity issue.
Particularly in the world we live in, where the only developed country to drastically increase inequality in recent decades is also the only one undergoing a constitutional crisis.
In a world where it is increasingly clear that economic inequality is an externality -- as it weakens political systems, increases crime and unrest, and decreases trust -- it is malpractice not to teach students this in ECON101.
Just finished teaching a class on taxation in the Economics and Public Policy master's at @sciencespo.bsky.social.
My slides, heavily inspired by courses by Charles Brendon, @gabrielzucman.bsky.social, and Emmanuel Saez, are here:
👉 wouterleenders.eu/KAFP3355/06_...
Feedback very welcome!
There is an over-supply of PhDs that want to do research-adjacent activities. There is an under-supply of replication.
Solution: Large government-funded replication institutes. These institutes would be strong deterrents for bad research, improving overall research quality.
NEW: A groundbreaking survey on fairness across the world with 65,000 individuals across 60 countries -- from colleagues at @nhhecon.bsky.social.
Key findings:
* The West is especially meritocratic.
* What drives inequality? Globally, people believe luck matters more than merit.
bit.ly/41V6zJe
I wish BlueSky added a good algorithm. This is the huge, huge problem with this website. I come on here to see the biggest, most interesting things that are happening online -- but "Discover" is just very bad, approaching current Twitter levels. Not sure if this is everyone's experience?
Twitter's "For you" page has become complete slop. I don't see big posts from accounts I follow, just terrible content and right-wing propaganda. "Following", meanwhile, is like the Facebook feed of whoever posted in the last hour.
It's really taken a complete nosedive.
The problem with BlueSky is that it's so dead, at least for me. Not sure if I'm missing something or if people just gave up on social media altogether. It's a shame, community is good.
I'm not sure if it's changes in the algorithm or everyone leaving, but Twitter is becoming more unbearable every day. How's everyone doing on BSky?
A point about top taxation I think is overlooked is that both the mechanical effect and behavioral responses reduce inequality.
The mechanical effect also collects revenue, which is great. But both reduce inequality.
Come join us at the Berkeley Stone Center Summer School on Inequality! Great opportunity for early-stage PhDs to get a crash course on modern inequality research.
I've been posting both here and on Twitter lately. The engagement on both:
(Likes on BSky / Likes on Twitter)
0 - 16
4 - 589
0 - 5
2 - 190
...where is everyone? Any hints welcome!
In reality we're almost certainly somewhere in the middle. There is not nearly enough research on the trade-off, however.
If what really matters to people is relative incomes (think Easterlin paradox), then the social planner should minimize inequality at all costs
If what really matters is absolute incomes, then the social planner should maximize incomes. Inequality still matters (DMUI), but less.
A short bonus:
This paper relates to a broader point I find fascinating, which is that relative income concerns in a population immediately means that inequality is an externality for the social planner.
We usually talk about inequality and fairness, but I firmly believe that inequality is primarily an efficiency concern.
Unequal countries function worse than equal countries in many, many ways. The incentive benefits of inequality have to be huge to make up those costs.
