Intervention(s)
The aim of the laboratory experiment is to study the causal relationship between heterogeneity in life expectancy due to economic inequality and the amount of intragenerational redistribution in a stylized social security system. In the experiment, subjects are assigned the role of an involved social planner. In the framework of a hypothetical social security system, the social planner is asked to redistribute benefits among a group of persons who differ in their contribution-based entitlements. Depending on the treatment, the group members may also differ in their 'mortality risk', which is implemented in the experiment as the probability of default in terms of receiving a zero payoff instead of the benefit. The decision of the social planner is made from behind the veil of ignorance (VOI), that is, she learns her position in the group in terms of her own entitlement, mortality risk, and (expected) benefit only after having made her choice about the level of redistribution.
As a new feature compared to a former version of this experiment, positions in the group are still randomly assigned, but the social planner knows prior to her choice that she has to earn the entilement associated with her position ex-post. In the experiment, entitlements will be associated with a waiting time, whereby a higher waiting time is attached to a higher entitlement (as this results from a higher effort). Subjects are fully-informed and have to fulfill the waiting time of their position at the end of the experiment.
In a new version, entitlements will be associated with a real-effort task instead of a waiting time. Subjects have to position a certain number of sliders at the end of the experiment. The number of sliders corresponds to the entitlement of their position. Still, subjects are fully-informed that they have to complete the slider-task at the end of the experiment.