Redistribution and Moral Wiggle Room

Abstract

We investigate to which extent individuals sacrifice their redistribution principles to accommodate their discriminatory tastes. We conduct experiments with large samples of the German and French majority population, where respondents have the possibility to redistribute money between two workers, of which one belongs to an ethnic minority group. We implement treatments where a clear normative benchmark is available, and treatments where different allocations can be justified by appealing to different principles. Such a plurality of principles creates moral wiggle room, that is the possibility to endorse a principle because it aligns with one's discriminatory preferences. We find that workers with a minority background are discriminated against, but the presence of moral wiggle room does not increase the extent of discrimination. Join paper with Alexander Cappelen, Fatma Sueda Evirgen, Sigrid Suetens and Bertil Tungodden.