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Social Image Concerns and Welfare Take-Up

Referierte Aufsätze Web of Science

Jana Friedrichsen, Tobias König, Renke Schmacker

In: Journal of Public Economics 168 (2018), S. 174-192

Abstract

Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that social image concerns causally reduce the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design manipulates the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on ability or luck, and how the transfer is financed. We find that subjects avoid the inference both of being low-skilled (ability stigma) and of being willing to live off others (free-rider stigma). Using a placebo treatment, we exclude other explanations for the observed stigma effects. Although stigma reduces take-up, elicitation of political preferences reveals that only a minority of “taxpayers” vote for the public transfer.

Renke Schmacker

Research Associate in the Public Economics Department



JEL-Classification: C91;D03;H31;I38
Keywords: Stigma, Signaling, Redistribution, Non-take-up, Welfare program
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.10.008

Frei zugängliche Version: (econstor)
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/231786

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