The experimental literature on preferences for redistribution has established that individual perceptions of what earning distributions are fair depend greatly on context. In this paper, we study an important and novel dimension of context: whether the choice to redistribute occurs before...

The implementation of environmental policies varies substantially across geographical areas. This paper proposes a conceptual and methodological framework-adapted from the health economics literature- to assess equity in the allocation of environmental policy effort. We define "environmental...

Market forces beyond individual control are a central driver of income inequality, a phenomenon we refer to as market luck. In meritocratic societies, this raises the question of whether individuals perceive such inequalities as fair. To address this question, we conduct experiments in the US,...

We study the effects of envy (relative consumption concerns), drawing on evidence that preferences typically exhibit present bias. We employ a Ramseytype model with agents who differ in initial capital endowments and account for present-biased envy: agents are naive and care about how their...

This Brief introduces the Justice Pillars Towards Evidence-Based Reform (JUPITER) initiative, a standardized yet flexible, country-based assessment tool that evaluates the effectiveness of justice systems across countries. Developed by the World Bank's Global Program on Justice and the Rule of...

This Brief examines the complex relationship between statutory courts and customary law systems, highlighting the historical context that fostered legal pluralism in many countries. It argues that attempts to replace customary practices with uniform legal frameworks have largely failed,...

Judicial map reforms refer to an emerging stream of reform programs that attempts to improve the responsiveness of the justice system by adjusting the courts' location, size, and jurisdiction to demographic and socio-economic factors. Building on the World Bank's experience in supporting client...

Emotional labor, particularly in frontline service roles, has traditionally been examined through the lens of performance strategies, such as surface or deep acting. However, emerging research suggests that employees' subjective interpretations of emotionally demanding situations-especially...

This paper establishes three novel findings on fairness and redistribution by combining theory-driven experimental games with large-scale surveys in the U.S. and five European countries. First, individuals revealing egalitarian, libertarian, or meritocratic fairness preferences in experimental...

This paper investigates how people differentiate between inequality caused by talent and inequality caused by luck in a large-scale study of the US population. We establish that people distinguish significantly between inequality due to luck and inequality due to talent, even when controlling...

This study explores the way in which social information about giving impacts the stability of distributional preferences. We designed a two-stage treatment which varied the information participants received about the maximum amounts given to recipients. Information on maximum giving can...

We study all theories of justice that disentangle ethical views on intergenerational discounting and intergenerational inequality. Each “modular” social welfare function is uniquely identified by a time-discounting function—capturing attitudes toward time—and an aggregator function—...

Knowledge of the factors driving people's views on redistribution in the Global South remains limited. While these societies occupy top positions in inequality rankings, redistribution levels tend to be lower. We combine survey and experimental data from Mozambique and Viet Nam to test whether...

This research uses fuzzy set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to explore the role of perceived fairness in promoting objective behavior in peer assessment. Drawing on three key antecedents - outcome fairness, anonymity, and explanation - the paper presents multiple combinations of...

How do different characteristics of pay-for-performance schemes affect fairness perceptions? In two studies, we systematically consider three major classes of incentive schemes: continuous piece rate incentives, discrete bonus schemes, and tournament incentives. We find that pay inequality has a...

Inequality often arises from strategic interactions among individuals. This is so because risky investments can not only be resolved by chance (natural risk), but also by others' actions (social risk). We study how these different sources of inequality shape fairness judgments and the level of...

Inequality often arises from strategic interactions among individuals. This is so because risky investments can not only be resolved by chance (natural risk), but also by others' actions (social risk). We study how these different sources of inequality shape fairness judgments and the level of...

Inequality often arises from strategic interactions among individuals. This is so because risky investments can not only be resolved by chance (natural risk), but also by others' actions (social risk). We study how these different sources of inequality shape fairness judgments and the level of...

Inequality often arises from strategic interactions among individuals. This is so because risky investments can not only be resolved by chance (natural risk), but also by others' actions (social risk). We study how these different sources of inequality shape fairness judgments and the level of...

This paper experimentally examines the interplay between focal points, beliefs, and distributional preferences. Contrary to common wisdom, there is no detectable evidence that equal splits act as salient focal points in distributional voting contexts. Participants mispredict others' preferences:...

Auf der Weltgesundheitsversammlung im Mai 2024 wurde beschlossen, die Verhandlungen über ein internationales Pandemieabkommen zu verlängern. Gleichzeitig wurden die Internationalen Gesundheitsvorschriften von 2005 umfassend reformiert. Ziel beider Instrumente ist es, bei Gesundheitsnotfällen...