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Vortragende Person/Vortragende Personen:
Maj-Britt Sterba and Friedrich Breyer (University of Konstanz)

Citizens and politicians rely on their knowledge of a pension system, particularly its redistributive features, when forming their preferences and evaluating its fairness. Taking advantage of the Bismarckian rule of proportionality in Germany, we provide survey-based evidence indicating that voters and politicians adjust their preferences and perceptions of fairness when new information becomes available. Information on the proportional character of the pension system increases perceived fairness and decreases redistributive demands, whereas information about inequalities in life expectancy between beneficiary groups lowers perceived fairness and increases the demand for redistribution. Both citizens and politicians reject the Bismarckian principle of strict proportionality between lifetime contributions and pension benefits in favor of more redistribution from high to low earners in the retirement phase. Our design utilizes a representative survey of citizens and state politicians in 2020-22.

Dr. Maj-Britt Sterba is a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz. She is an economist by training, and did her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods with a focus on fairness attitudes towards economic inequality. Her research interests include experimental economics, perceptions of fair and unfair inequalities and political philosophy.

Prof. Dr. Friedrich Breyer was a Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Konstanz up until October 2020. He is principal investigator of the project "Political Elites and Inequality: Information, Heuristics and Policy".

Registration: www.inequality.uni.kn/cluster-colloquium