TY - JOUR
T1 - Belief in a just world and redistributive politics
AU - Bénabou, Roland
AU - Tirole, Jean
N1 - Funding Information:
* We are grateful for helpful remarks and suggestions to Samuel Bowles, Edward Glaeser, Robert Lane, and George Loewenstein, as well as to seminar and conference participants at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of California-Berkeley, Università Boc-coni, Columbia University, the Département et Laboratoire D’Economie Appli-quée in Paris, the European University Institute, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Mannheim University, the University of Miami, New York University, Università di Pisa, Princeton University, Stanford University, the Université de Toulouse, and University College London. Bénabou gratefully acknowledges support from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Science Foundation (SES-0424015), as well as the hospitality of the Institute for Advanced Study during the academic year 2002–2003.
PY - 2006/5
Y1 - 2006/5
N2 - International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate individuals' recurrent struggle with cognitive dissonance as they seek to maintain, and pass on to their children, a view of the world where effort ultimately pays off and everyone gets their just desserts. This paper offers a model that helps explain i) why most people feel such a need to believe in a "just world"; ii) why this need, and therefore the prevalence of the belief, varies considerably across countries; iii) the implications of this phenomenon for international differences in political ideology, levels of redistribution, labor supply, aggregate income, and popular perceptions of the poor. More generally, the paper develops a theory of collective beliefs and motivated cognitions, including those concerning "money" (consumption) and happiness, as well as religion.
AB - International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate individuals' recurrent struggle with cognitive dissonance as they seek to maintain, and pass on to their children, a view of the world where effort ultimately pays off and everyone gets their just desserts. This paper offers a model that helps explain i) why most people feel such a need to believe in a "just world"; ii) why this need, and therefore the prevalence of the belief, varies considerably across countries; iii) the implications of this phenomenon for international differences in political ideology, levels of redistribution, labor supply, aggregate income, and popular perceptions of the poor. More generally, the paper develops a theory of collective beliefs and motivated cognitions, including those concerning "money" (consumption) and happiness, as well as religion.
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U2 - 10.1162/qjec.2006.121.2.699
DO - 10.1162/qjec.2006.121.2.699
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33646348461
SN - 0033-5533
VL - 121
SP - 699
EP - 746
JO - Quarterly Journal of Economics
JF - Quarterly Journal of Economics
IS - 2
ER -