How Redistribution And Beliefs About Meritocracy Go Hand In Hand

There’s no question that people in the United States have very different beliefs about meritocracy and redistribution than do people in Europe. But how did these two groups end up in these divergent equilibria? And can anything be done to shift from one to the other? These are the questions Princeton economist Roland Benabou asks in his classic paper, “Belief In A Just World And Redistributive Politics,” which is co-authored with Jean Tirole. Their modeling of these dynamics gives us some possible answers for why redistribution has such a difficult time politically in the United States—and how that could change.