We illustrate how the desire to live in a fair society that rewards individual effort and hard work triggers an unselfish though rational demand for redistribution. This leads the well off to prefer higher taxes and the poor to reject extreme progressivity. We then provide evidence of these...

This chapter sheds light on the principle of equality from the perspective of normative (law and) economics as a theory of justice. In this reconceptualization, equality appears in two forms: On the one hand, specific equal-treatment rules can be derived from the efficiency goal. Law and...

Meritocracies aspire to reward hard work and promise not to judge individuals by the circumstances into which they were born. However, circumstances often shape the choice to work hard. I show that people's merit judgments are "shallow" and insensitive to this effect. They hold others...