Wage inequality and preferences for redistribution

Last registered on May 11, 2026
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Wage inequality and preferences for redistribution
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0007739
Initial registration date
May 27, 2021

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
May 28, 2021, 12:49 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
May 11, 2026, 2:46 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Australia
Region
Country
France
Region
Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region
Country
Japan
Region
Country
Sweden
Region
Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Christopher Hoy
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Lionel Page
PI Affiliation
PI Name
Philip Grossman
PI Affiliation
PI Name
Catherine Eckel
PI Affiliation
PI Name
Dan Goldstein
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2021-05-28
End date
2023-12-31
Keywords
Behavior, Governance, Labor
Additional Keywords
Inequality, Redistribution, Political Economy
JEL code(s)
D31, D63, D72, D83, P16
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Using new cross-country survey and experimental data, we investigate the nature of beliefs about wage inequality and the effect of these beliefs on people’s support for redistribution with over 9000 respondents across six high-income countries (Australia, France, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States). This study combines a flexible elicitation of beliefs about the distribution of full-time wages within each country and a randomized survey experiment where respondents are allocated into one of three groups, two of which receive different types of information about wage inequality.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Eckel, Catherine et al. 2026. "Wage inequality and preferences for redistribution." AEA RCT Registry. May 11. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7739-1.6
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
There are two treatment groups. One group receives information about the ratio of the average wage of a CEO of a publicly listed company relative to the average full-time worker and the other receives information about the P90/P10 ratio of full-time workers wages in their country. This data has been sourced from the OECD employment database and the Bloomberg Global CEO Pay Index.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2021-06-01
Intervention End Date
2021-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
There are three main families of primary outcomes. The first is preferences for government led redistribution. The second is people’s beliefs about inequality and fairness in general. The third is real world actions people are willing to take to address wage inequality.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
There are two families of secondary outcomes. The first is people’s perception of the distribution of wages in their country. The second is people’s preferred distribution of wages in their country. These outcomes are measured to illustrate whether the treatment impacts people’s priors.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The impact of the information interventions outlined above will be evaluated via an online randomized survey experiment in 6 countries (Australia, France, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States) in mid 2021. In addition to the content of the treatment, respondents will also be randomly allocated to receive the treatment before or after they express their perception of and preferred level of wage inequality in their country (Sections B and C in the questionnaire). This will allow us to a) illustrate whether the treatment impacted people’s perceptions of and preferred levels of the wage distribution (when the treatment is provided prior to Sections B and C) and b) examine heterogenous treatment effects on the primary outcomes based on respondents prior perceptions of and preferences for the distribution of wages in their country (when the treatment is provided after Sections B and C). To conduct this analysis data will be pooled across countries and/or treatments. However we will also examine whether there are different treatment effects between countries.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Qualtrics Stratified Randomization (by age and gender)
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
1500 respondents in each of the 6 countries
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
500 in each treatment and the control group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Power calculations have been conducted to estimate the sample size required based upon the average effect size in similar cross-country survey experiments on this topic (e.g. Alesina, Stantcheva and Teso 2018). The minimum detectable effect (MDE) is around 8 percentage points (with power 0.8 and alpha 0.05) for a specific outcome in each country. The MDE is substantially lower when the data is pooled across countries and/or treatments.
Supporting Documents and Materials

Documents

Document Name
Survey (US)
Document Type
survey_instrument
Document Description
Survey (US)
File
Survey (US)

MD5: a93092cba0461d655368a02ccd5497f2

SHA1: 9b041c3f87ba19076cc2535f7d20420d9df56b2f

Uploaded At: May 31, 2021

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2020-11-20
IRB Approval Number
26953
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

210528analysis+plan.docx

MD5: b4c96020f5b49c4847c7a303e8ac014d

SHA1: 0de87634fe6d52573f6417a16b53534cd258856a

Uploaded At: May 27, 2021

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials