How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

Ilyana  Kuziemko; Michael I. Norton; Emmanuel  Saez; Stefanie  Stantcheva

Article | American Economic Review

How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

by Ilyana Kuziemko, Michael I. Norton, Emmanuel Saez and Stefanie Stantcheva

Abstract

We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on U.S. income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only slightly moves tax and transfer policy preferences. An exception is the estate tax—informing respondents of the small share of decedents who pay it doubles support for it. The small effects for all other policies can be partially explained by respondents' low trust in government and a disconnect between concerns about social issues and the public policies meant to address them.

Keywords: Income; Taxation; Economic Growth; United States;

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Citation:

Kuziemko, Ilyana, Michael I. Norton, Emmanuel Saez, and Stefanie Stantcheva. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments." American Economic Review 105, no. 4 (April 2015): 1478–1508.

Article | Journal of Consumer Psychology

The Feeling of Not Knowing It All

Haiyang Yang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

How do consumers assess their mastery of knowledge they have learned? We explore this question by investigating a common knowledge consumption situation: encountering opportunities for further learning. We argue and show that such opportunities can trigger a feeling-of-not-knowing-it-all (FONKIA), which lowers consumers’ confidence in their mastery of the knowledge they already possess. Specifically, listing optional follow-up readings at the conclusion of a course lowered students’ confidence in their mastery of the course material they had already learned (Study 1). Encountering an optional learning opportunity increased the FONKIA, which mediated the decreased confidence (Studies 2 and 3). We also document two moderators consistent with our conceptualization. First, participants primed with mastery (vs. instrumental) motivation were more negatively impacted when they encountered optional learning opportunities. Second, the more related the optional opportunities were to the target topic, the lower participants’ confidence in their mastery of what they had already learned. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings, such as encouraging further learning or harming teaching evaluations.

Keywords: Knowledge consumption; Consumption of learning; Judgment of knowledge; Feeling ofknowing; Confidence in knowledge; WYSIATI; FONKIA; Knowledge Acquisition; Learning; Perception;

Citation:

Yang, Haiyang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely, and Michael I. Norton. "The Feeling of Not Knowing It All." Journal of Consumer Psychology 29, no. 3 (July 2019): 455–462. View Details

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How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

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