AMERICAN POLITICS & PUBLIC POLICY WORKSHOP: Vivekinan Ashok (Yale), “Manipulation of Self-Interest Perception Can Increase Support for Redistribution: Experimental Evidence Testing the Meltzer and Richard Model”

“Manipulation of Self-Interest Perception Can Increase Support for Redistribution: Experimental Evidence Testing the Meltzer and Richard Model”

The extent to which voters perceive income inequality has been shown to affect their demand for redistribution in the United States. However, as current empirical research fails to identify the mechanism behind these shifts in demand, we do not know why individuals update their attitudes when their often biased perceptions are corrected. I present evidence from a novel survey experiment where I manipulate a respondent’s standing in the income distribution as well as the way in which revenues are transferred back to households. I show that voters behave as predicted by Meltzer and Richard (1981), favoring greater redistribution when they are net beneficiaries of a tax-and-transfer policy. However, these self-interested considerations are moderated by voters’ perceptions of the political process.

Vivekinan (Vivek) L. Ashok is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science. He is interested in political behavior, quantitative methods, and political economy. His research looks at the effects of information about income inequality on voters’ attitudes and behaviors. In addition to his research, Vivek manages the ISPS Behavioral Research Lab.

Vivek has an A.B. in Economics from the University of Chicago and worked as an economic consultant before starting at Yale. From 2013- 2014, he was an ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow.

This seminar series is cosponsored by ISPS and CSAP.