Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
风险与社会偏好：关于再分配和环境保护支持的理论与证据
Risk and Social Preferences: Theory and Evidence on Support for Redistribution and Environmental Protection
摘要
This paper examines how risk attitudes and social preferences shape support for redistributive and environmental policies. We propose a micro-founded explanation in which support for redistribution arises from two mechanisms: an insurance motive and fairness concerns. Both risk aversion and social preferences increase demand for redistribution, with a substitution effect whereby higher aversion to social risk lowers the threshold of social preferences needed to support it. For environmental protection, these factors operate in parallel, increasing support for policies that mitigate negative consumption externalities. When individuals choose between policy domains, preferences depend on perceived future income uncertainty and the weight assigned to externalities, making the overall effect ambiguous. We test these predictions using a nationally representative dataset of 6,000 observations from six European countries. The empirical results confirm our hypotheses.
中文摘要
本文考察风险态度与社会偏好如何影响对再分配政策和环境政策的支持。我们提出一个微观基础解释，其中对再分配的支持源于两种机制：保险动机与公平关切。风险厌恶和社会偏好都会增加对再分配的需求，并存在替代效应，即对社会风险的厌恶程度越高，支持再分配所需的社会偏好阈值就越低。对于环境保护，这些因素并行发挥作用，增加对缓解负消费外部性政策的支持。当个人在不同政策领域之间进行选择时，偏好取决于感知到的未来收入不确定性以及赋予外部性的权重，从而使总体效应变得不确定。我们使用来自六个欧洲国家、包含6000个观测值的全国代表性数据集检验这些预测。实证结果证实了我们的假设。