“Are Americans more meritocratic and efficiency-seeking than Scandinavians? Not necessarily but people’s social preferences may clearly be shaped by the redistributive institutions that are present in a society,” said Bertil Tungodden, Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and Co-Director of the research group “The Choice Lab”, at a seminar organised jointly by the EIB Institute and the University of Luxembourg in the series “Inequality and…”.

Inequality acceptance is greater in the US – where the top 1% of earners receive almost 18‑19% of the total national income – than in Scandinavia where this figure is around 5-8% (OECD).

According to Prof Tungodden, people’s social preferences may affect inequality and redistribution in at least two important aspects: political support for redistribution and pre-redistribution income inequality (generated for example in markets).

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