A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä
Does income transparency affect support for redistribution? Evidence from Finland’s tax day
Tekijät: Dunaiski, Maurice; Tukiainen, Janne
Kustantaja: University of Chicago Press
Julkaisuvuosi: 2024
Journal: Journal of Politics
Tietokannassa oleva lehden nimi: The Journal of Politics
ISSN: 0022-3816
eISSN: 1468-2508
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/732955
Verkko-osoite: https://doi.org/10.1086/732955
Rinnakkaistallenteen osoite: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/477861768
This paper examines whether income transparency - the public release of citizens’ income information - affects support for redistribution. We leverage a quasi-experiment in Finland, where every year on the so-called tax day, the authorities release income information on Finland’s top earners to the public. To identify causal effects we compare respondents who took part in the European Social Survey shortly before and after the event. We find that the tax day increases perceptions that earnings of the top 10% are unfair, but that public support for redistribution remains largely unaffected. A notable exception are top earners, who decrease their support for redistribution, and young people, who increase their support for redistribution. Our results highlight the scope conditions of previous experimental studies, and suggest that increasing exposure to inequality through a real-world policy, rather than experimental treatments, may trigger only marginal changes in support for redistribution.