Preferences over the Fair Division of Goods: Information, Good, and Sample Effects in a Health Context
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abstract
Greater recognition by economists of the influential role that concern for
distributional equity exerts on decision making in a variety of economic contexts has
spurred interest in empirical research on the public judgments of fair distribution.
Using a stated-preference experimental design, this paper contributes to the growing
literature on fair division by investigating the empirical support for each of five
distributional principles — equal division among recipients, Rawlsian maximin, total
benefit maximization, equal benefit for recipients, and allocation according to relative
need among recipients — in the division of a fixed bundle of a good across settings that
differ with respect to the good being allocated (a health care good — pills, and
non-health care but still health-affecting good — apples) and the way that alternative
possible divisions of the good are described (quantitative information only, verbal
information only, and both). It also offers new evidence on sample effects (university
sample vs. community samples) and how the aggregate ranking of principles is affected by
alternative vote-scoring methods. We find important information effects. When presented
with quantitative information only, support for the division to equalize benefit across
recipients is consistent with that found in previous research; changing to verbal
descriptions causes a notable shift in support among principles, especially between equal
division of the goods and total benefit maximization. The judgments made when presented
with both quantitative and verbal information match more closely those made with
quantitative-only descriptions rather than verbal-only descriptions, suggesting that the
quantitative information dominates. The information effects we observe are consistent
with a lack of understanding among participants as to the relationship between the
principles and the associated quantitative allocations. We also find modest good effects
in the expected direction: the fair division of pills is tied more closely to
benefit-related criterion than is the fair division of apples (even though both produce
health benefits). We find evidence of only small differences between the university and
community samples and important sex-information interactions.
