The sustainability of the welfare state ultimately depends on citizens’ preferences for income redistribution. They are elicited through a Discrete Choice Experiment performed in 2008 in Switzerland. Attributes are redistribution as GDP share, its uses (the unemployed, old-age pensioners,...

According to many observers, the world is currently getting riskier along many of its dimensions. In this paper we analyse how the welfare state, i.e., social insurance that works through redistributive taxation, should deal with this trend. We distinguish between risks that can be insured by...

Existing evidence of inequality aversion relies on data from class-room experiments where subjects face hypothetical questions. This paper estimates the magnitude of inequality aversion using representative survey data, with questions related to the real-economy situations the respondents face....