title: The distributional preferences of an elite.
abstract: We studied the distributional preferences of an elite cadre of Yale Law School students, a group that will assume positions of power in U.S. society. Our experimental design allows us to test whether redistributive decisions are consistent with utility maximization and to decompose underlying preferences into two qualitatively different tradeoffs: fair-mindedness versus self-interest, and equality versus efficiency. Yale Law School subjects are more consistent than subjects drawn from the American Life Panel, a diverse sample of Americans. Relative to the American Life Panel, Yale Law School subjects are also less fair-minded and substantially more efficiency-focused. We further show that our measure of equality-efficiency tradeoffs predicts Yale Law School students' career choices: Equality-minded subjects are more likely to be employed at nonprofit organizations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. rfisman@bu.edu.
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fisman
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jakiela
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkely, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Shachar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kariv
authors.affiliation: Yale Law School, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Markovits
mesh_terms: D000288:Administrative Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002321:Career Choice; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D009939:Organizations, Nonprofit; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011639:Public Opinion; D040841:Resource Allocation; D012935:Social Justice / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students; D014481:United States