| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Trial Title | Before Income Mobility, Redistribution and Trust | After Current Inequality, Future Prospects, and Trust: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment |
| Field Trial Status | Before in_development | After completed |
| Field Abstract | Before In societies with stagnant inequality, perceived economic unfairness erodes interpersonal trust. We conducted a lab experiment to examine how relevant features of two mechanisms for reducing inequality -- income mobility and redistribution -- affect trust. Mobility equalizes opportunities by allowing movement up or down the income ladder, reducing expected income disparities over time but maintaining actual inequality. Redistribution equalizes outcomes by narrowing actual income gaps through taxation. We compare these mechanisms employing a two-period Trust Minigame with three conditions: i) a control with high endowment inequality; ii) a treatment reducing actual endowment dispersion to equalize outcomes; iii) a second treatment using stochastic rank reversal to reduce expected endowment dispersion and equalize opportunities. Based on inequity aversion models, we expect the outcome-equalizing treatment to foster higher aggregate trust than the opportunity-equalizing treatment. | After This paper compares two stylized environments in a pre-registered experiment based on a Trust Mini Game played over two independent periods. One environment features a smaller current endowment gap, implemented in the Low Inequality treatment. The other features better ex ante prospects under unchanged current inequality, implemented in the Rank Reversal treatment, where a Poor receiver may become Rich in period 2, and vice versa. The two treatments are calibrated to imply the same expected dispersion of endowments across the two periods of the game. We therefore focus on whether first-period behavior responds more strongly to a smaller current gap or to better prospects ex ante, before any rank reversal is realized. |
| Field JEL Code(s) | Before C92; D31; D63 | After C92; D31; D63. |
| Field Last Published | Before December 01, 2025 12:00 PM | After May 16, 2026 06:40 AM |
| Field Study Withdrawn | Before | After No |
| Field Intervention Completion Date | Before | After December 12, 2025 |
| Field Data Collection Complete | Before | After Yes |
| Field Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) | Before | After 12 laboratory sessions. |
| Field Was attrition correlated with treatment status? | Before | After No |
| Field Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations | Before | After 240 subjects. |
| Field Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms | Before | After 4 sessions per treatment arm: 4 sessions High Inequality, 4 sessions Low Inequality, 4 sessions rank reversal |
| Field Public Data URL | Before | After https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tX9UoRMmCNX-_w5JpLoCD_zEpkhsI2qQ/view?usp=sharing |
| Field Is there a restricted access data set available on request? | Before | After No |
| Field Program Files | Before | After Yes |
| Field Program Files URL | Before | After https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tX9UoRMmCNX-_w5JpLoCD_zEpkhsI2qQ/view?usp=sharing |
| Field Data Collection Completion Date | Before | After December 12, 2025 |
| Field Is data available for public use? | Before | After Yes |
| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Description | Before | After Working Paper |
| Field File | Before |
After
Current Inequality Future Prospects and Trust.pdf
MD5:
d2d3b4c3ee00e1fe3e23a51939da2284
SHA1:
db0c466a223d9e5039767a3bc5e8156916ee0c1c
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