Systematic country differences in the extent to which people believe that selfishness is a source of inequality, which sheds light on international differences in public morality, civic virtues, & redistributive policies

Global evidence on the selfish rich inequality hypothesis. Ingvild Almås et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 18, 2022 119 (3) e2109690119; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109690119

Significance: People’s beliefs about why the rich are richer than the poor have the potential to affect both policy attitudes and economic development. We provide global evidence showing that where the fortunes of the rich are perceived to be the result of selfish behavior, inequality is viewed as unfair, and there is stronger support for income redistribution. However, we also observe that belief in selfish rich inequality is highly polarized in many countries and thus a source of political disagreement that might be detrimental to economic development. We find systematic country differences in the extent to which people believe that selfishness is a source of inequality, which sheds light on international differences in public morality, civic virtues, and redistributive policies.

Abstract: We report on a study of whether people believe that the rich are richer than the poor because they have been more selfish in life, using data from more than 26,000 individuals in 60 countries. The findings show a strong belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis at the global level; in the majority of countries, the mode is to strongly agree with it. However, we also identify important between- and within-country variation. We find that the belief in selfish rich inequality is much stronger in countries with extensive corruption and weak institutions and less strong among people who are higher in the income distribution in their society. Finally, we show that the belief in selfish rich inequality is predictive of people’s policy views on inequality and redistribution: It is significantly positively associated with agreeing that inequality in their country is unfair, and it is significantly positively associated with agreeing that the government should aim to reduce inequality. These relationships are highly significant both across and within countries and robust to including country-level or individual-level controls and using Lasso-selected regressors. Thus, the data provide compelling evidence of people believing that the rich are richer because they have been more selfish in life and perceiving selfish behavior as creating unfair inequality and justifying equalizing policies.

Discussion

The present study reports from a global dataset on people’s beliefs about the extent to which selfishness among the rich has caused inequality. It shows substantial support among people for the hypothesis that the rich are richer than the poor because they have been more selfish in life. We find that people’s belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis is related both to societal circumstances—in particular, the corruption level in their country—and to their income rank in the country. Finally, we show that the belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis is predictive of people’s views on whether inequality in society is unfair and whether the government should aim to reduce inequality.

These findings contribute to a number of literatures. They highlight how people’s perception of the rich may affect the political economy of redistribution and economic development (30⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–37). If the fortunes of the rich are perceived to be the result of selfish behavior, then our evidence suggests that there will be substantial support for redistribution. However, we observe that the belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis is highly polarized in many countries and thus likely to be a source of political disagreements. In this respect, it is interesting to observe that the United States is one of the most polarized countries in our study and the country in which the belief in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis is most predictive of people’s attitudes toward inequality. Disagreement on the selfish rich inequality hypothesis among Americans may thus be a contributing factor to the present challenging political situation in the United States. More broadly, these beliefs may affect economic development by shaping the trust people have in the rich and in companies and other institutions often headed by people perceived to be among the rich.

This study further contributes to the important literature in psychology and economics on motivated beliefs, which has shown that people engage in self-enhancing attributions (27, 38⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–44). There is considerable evidence suggesting that people are predictably biased in how they gather and process information to preserve a self-image of being moral and not self-interested (43, 45⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–52). The present study provides evidence consistent with such a self-serving bias in beliefs, even though we cannot rule out that the observed association between income rank and the belief in selfish rich inequality may be driven by the rich and the poor having access to different information. Finally, the paper speaks to the large literature in moral psychology and behavioral economics studying the role of nonselfish motivation in explaining human behavior (23, 45, 53⇓–55). We provide large-scale evidence showing that people across the world believe there to be heterogeneity in the extent to which individuals behave nonselfishly.

An interesting question is how the belief in selfish rich inequality relates to the actual selfishness of the rich. To shed some light on this relationship, we use self-reported data from the 2018 Gallup World Poll on whether people last month donated money to a charity. In most countries, we find that the rich are more likely to have donated money than the poor, which is not surprising, given that the rich have more money than the poor. However, in SI Appendix, Fig. S8, we show that there is a negative relationship between the belief in selfish rich inequality and the extent to which donating money correlates with the income rank in society (β=−0.055, t57=−2.52$\beta =-0.055,\hspace{0.17em}{t}_{57}=-2.52$, P = 0.014). Hence, the data suggest that the rich are less willing to donate money in countries where people believe there to be selection of selfish people into becoming rich.

People’s beliefs in the selfish rich inequality hypothesis shed light on how we think society works and may shape the kind of life we want to live. These beliefs may also play a fundamental role in determining public morality and civic virtues (56) and therefore represent an essential ingredient in our understanding of human behavior and the organization of society.