Positive economics

Sociology

Pure mathematics

Population

Mathematics

Luck

Distributive property

Epistemology

Economic Justice

Demography

Mathematical analysis

Philosophy

Political science

Econometrics

Economics

Microeconomics

Mistake

Distributive justice

Inequality

Meritocracy

Market economy

The Economic Journal

We report from a study of how uncertainty about whether a given inequality reflects performance or luck shapes distributive behaviour. We show theoretically that the reaction to uncertainty depends on how people trade-off the probability of making a mistake when redistributing, and the size of this mistake. We show experimentally that uncertainty causes a strong egalitarian pull among a majority of meritocratic individuals. The theoretical framework and the experimental results are supported in general population surveys in the United States and Norway. Our findings suggest that how people handle uncertainty about the source of inequality may be of great importance for understanding distributive conflicts in society.

A Meritocratic Origin of Egalitarian Behaviour