Learning about Poverty and Preferences for Redistribution: Results from a Survey Experiment in Italy

Preferences for redistribution have attracted the attention of researchers from different disciplines for many decades. With reference to classical assumption of political economy and previous studies, we can argue that those who have a weaker social or income position have a higher demand for redistribution. However, the causal relationship between income and preferences for redistribution is not clear cut.

We present results of a survey experiment in Italy (N=2000) that shed light on whether objective information about of one's personal self-interest in redistribution affects individual preferences for redistribution. Rational learning theory predicts that if individuals reveal that they are poor, they are much more likely to increase their demand for redistribution compared to those individuals who will learn that they are not poor.

The experiment is designed to explore the mechanism of how individuals shape their preferences for redistribution in response to exposure to information about their income situation with reference to poverty line. Respondents are randomly divided into treatment and control group. The members of the treatment group, based on information about household composition and household income, are informed about their objective position in income distribution with reference to the poverty line: they receive a personalized treatment The members of the control group get information unrelated to inequality, poverty or redistribution (placebo treatment). Members of both groups are asked questions measuring preferences for redistribution. The subsequent data analyses are done on the whole sample and subsamples. The contextual effect of poverty and inequality is tested through a comparative analysis of Italian macro-regions.

The experiment is pre-registered and will be run by Dynata in November 2024.