Belief in Egalitarianism and Meritocracy

Why do people often distribute joint surplus in an egalitarian way even when the payoffs for more productive people are lower than those distributed in a meritocratic way? In particular, does a stationary state exist in which more productive people believe in egalitarianism even when distaste for m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc
Main Author Goto, Hideaki
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 01.01.2022
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Summary:Why do people often distribute joint surplus in an egalitarian way even when the payoffs for more productive people are lower than those distributed in a meritocratic way? In particular, does a stationary state exist in which more productive people believe in egalitarianism even when distaste for meritocracy decreases as meritocratic payoffs increase? We extend the Bisin–Verdier model of cultural transmission to address these questions and demonstrate that such a stationary state exists, but is stable only under certain conditions. Therefore, the fractions of people believing in egalitarianism and meritocracy may continue to fluctuate.