Redistribution in Germany: Evidence and Guidance in an International Context

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Volker Ulrich
• Subject Area: Economic Policy, Applied Economics
• Term: from 2009 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 157721258

Economists show considerable interest in the effects of redistributive policies on employment, competitiveness, and growth. However, a detailed analysis of citizens’ preferences with re-gard to redistribution is missing. This project aims at representatively measuring preferences of German citizens for different dimensions of public redistribution. Apart from providing an estimate of the desired total budget available for redistribution, it seeks to estimate the relative importance of different redistributive goals and to determine the relevant factors which shape the preferences using discrete-choice experiments (DCEs). By explicitly addressing alterna-tive uses of a given amount of tax revenues, the DCE methodology imposes the budget con-straint, which is inevitably present in actual decisions regarding the design of redistributive instruments, and forces respondents to overcome trade-offs. The relation between preferences and socioeconomic characteristics of the interviewees are to be analysed on a national and an international level. International differences will be examined by contrasting the findings for Germany with the results of parallel experiments conducted by research teams in Switzerland, Austria, and the United States. The proposed project may provide guidance for designing re-distributive policies, which are in line with citizens’ preferences.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Peter Zweifel