Preferences for Redistribution and Pensions: What Can We Learn from Experiments?

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes. It is still largely an open question what people‘s preferences are regarding redistribution—both through pensions schemes as well as more generally. It would seem that economists have little to say about this question, as they routinely assume that people are predominantly selfish. Economic experiments have revealed, however, that most people do in fact have redistributional preferences that are not merely inspired by self-interest. This paper reviews this experimental evidence. For that purpose we distinguish between three fundamentally different types of situations. The first deals with distributional preferences behind a veil of ignorance. What type of income distribution do people prefer when they do not know whether they will end up in an advantaged or disadvantaged position? A main result here is that, contrary to what John Rawls suggested, people do not prefer the maximin rule, but rather favor a utilitarian justice concept appended with a safety net for the poorest. Another result is that people are willing to accept income inequalities—as long as these are due to choices for which people can be held accountable. In the second type of situation, individuals make choices in front of the veil of ignorance and know their position. Experiments show that preferences for redistribution are strongly dependent on a person‘s own position. People in a relatively disadvantaged position want more redistribution than those in a relatively advantaged position, which shows that preferences for redistribution are clearly affected by self-interest. Still, even many of those in an advantaged position display a preference forredistribution. This holds, in particular, if inequality is due to chance rather than effort. There are also significant differences in preferences between the genders and between people with different political orientations. Finally, we discuss situations in which income is determined by interdependent rather than individual choices. People are dependent upon the cooperation of others for the achievement of their (income) goals. Experiments show that behavioral factors such as trust and reciprocity play a crucial role, and they also indicate that these factors are strongly affected by the institutional setting. In the closing parts of the paper we discuss whether and how these experimental results speak to the redistribution issues of pensions. For example, do they argue for or against mandatory participation? Should we have less redistribution and more actuarial fairness? How does this depend on the type of redistribution involved?public economics ;

Preferences for Redistribution and Pensions. What can we Learn from Experiments?

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes. Nevertheless, it is still an open question what people’s preferences are regarding this form of redistribution. This paper reviews experimental evidence on preferences regarding redistribution and asks what this evidence tells us about preferences for redistribution through pension schemes. We distinguish between three fundamentally different types of situations. The first deals with distributional preferences behind a veil of ignorance. What type of income distribution do people prefer when they do not know whether they will end up in an advantaged or disadvantaged position? The evidence shows that, contrary to John Rawls' suggestion, people do not prefer the maximin rule, but rather favor a utilitarian justice concept appended with a safety net for the poorest. Furthermore, people are willing to accept income inequalities when they are due to choices for which people can be held responsible. In the second type of situation, individuals make choices in front of the veil of ignorance and know their position. Here the evidence shows that preferences for redistribution are strongly dependent on a person’s own position. Disadvantaged people want more redistribution than those who are relatively advantaged, indicating that preferences for redistribution are biased by self-interest. Still, even many of those in an advantaged position display a preference for redistribution. Finally, we discuss situations in which income is determined by interdependent rather than individual choices. Here experiments show that behavioral factors such as trust and reciprocity play a crucial role, and that these factors are strongly affected by the institutional setting. In the closing parts of the paper we discuss whether and how these experimental results speak to the redistribution issues of pensions.redistribution, fairness, pension, insurance, experiment

Nachweis der Einzelkomponenten B, L1 und L2 des Bacillus cereus Enterotoxin-Komplexes Hämolysin BL: Entwicklung und Charakterisierung von monoklonalen Antikörpern

Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der Etablierung und Anwendung von monoklonalen Antikörpern (mAk) gegen den aus den drei Einzelkomponenten B, L1 und L2 bestehenden, von B. cereus produzierten Enterotoxin-Komplex Hämolysin BL (HBL). Als Immunogen wurde eine aus B. cereus Kulturüberständen (KÜ) mittels Immunaffinitätschromatographie (IAC) gewonnene Toxinpräparation verwendet. Aus drei durchgeführten Zellfusionsexperimenten konnten insgesamt 35 Hybridomzelllinien, die HBL-Komponenten-spezifische mAk produzieren, etabliert werden. Die Charakterisierung der Antikörper erfolgte mittels Enzymimmuntests (EIA), Immunoblot und WST-Zellkulturtest. Untersuchungen zur Spezifität zeigten, dass ein Großteil der mAk (29) gegen HBL-B gerichtet ist, vier mAk reagieren sowohl mit HBL-B als auch HBL-L1, zwei mAk sind HBL-L2-spezifisch. Ein HBL-L1-spezifischer mAk konnte hingegen nicht etabliert werden. In Zellkulturtests waren die beiden HBL-L2-spezifischen mAk in der Lage, die zytotoxische Aktivität von HBL zu neutralisieren. Demgegenüber wurde für drei HBL-B-reaktive mAk ein Zytotoxizitäts-verstärkender Effekt beobachtet. Unter Verwendung der hergestellten mAk sowie mAk aus früheren Arbeiten am Lehrstuhl für Hygiene und Technologie der Milch gelang es, erstmals zum Nachweis aller HBL-Komponenten hochempfindliche Sandwich-EIAs zu entwickeln. Die Nachweisgrenzen für rekombinante Toxinkomponenten lagen dabei jeweils im unteren Nanogramm-Bereich (0,04 - 4 ng/ml). Eine Untersuchung der HBL-Produktivität von 16 hbl-positiven Stämmen zeigte, dass diese zwischen verschiedenen Stämmen zum Teil deutlich divergiert. Allerdings konnte im Hinblick auf die Expression der HBL-Einzelkomponenten bei den meisten Isolaten ein ähnliches Bild erhalten werden. In Studien zur HBL-Komplexbildung konnte mittels IAC gezeigt werden, dass in nativen B. cereus KÜ HBL-B und HBL-L1 interagieren. Da zudem alle drei HBL-Komponenten in den gereinigten Toxinpräparationen detektiert werden konnten, ist wahrscheinlich auch ein Teil des HBL-L2 an diese Komplexe assoziiert. Mit einem Hybrid-Sandwich-EIA-System, das auf der Kombination eines HBL-L1-reaktiven mAk und eines HBL-L2-spezifischen mAk basiert, sowie einem Dot Blot Assay wurde des Weiteren die Interaktion von rekombinantem HBL-L1 und HBL-L2 in Lösung demonstriert.This study describes the establishment and characterization of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) against each of the individual components (B, L1, L2) of the Bacillus cereus enterotoxin complex hemolysin BL (HBL). B. cereus supernatants were purified by immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC) and the resulting toxin preparations were used as immunogen. A total of 35 hybridoma cell lines, secreting component-specific antibodies were obtained from three different cell fusion experiments. The mAbs were characterized by means of enzyme immunoassays (EIA), immunoblots and cell culture assays. Specificity analyses revealed that the majority of the mAbs (29) is directed against HBL-B, while four mAbs react with both HBL-B and HBL-L1; another two mAbs are specific for HBL-L2. However, no HBL-L1-specific mAb could be established. In cell culture assays, both of the HBL-L2-specific mAbs were capable to neutralize the cytotoxic activity of the HBL-complex. In contrary, an enhanced cytotoxic effect was observed for some of the HBL-B reactive mAbs. Based on the new developed antibodies as well as other mAbs previously generated at the chair of hygiene and technology of milk, highly sensitive sandwich EIAs for the detection of each of the individual HBL-components were established. For recombinant toxin components detection limits of these assays were in the range from 0.04 to 4 ng/ml. Studies on the HBL-productivity of 16 hbl-positive B. cereus strains revealed that there is a large variation in the level of toxin expression. However, with regard to the expression of the individual HBL-components results were similar for most of the tested strains. By using IAC strong evidence was found that HBL-B and HBL-L1 interact in native supernatants. Further on, as all HBL components could be detected in the purified toxin preparations, it seems to be likely that parts of HBL-L2 are associated to those complexes as well. Interaction of recombinant HBL-L1 and HBL-L2 could be demonstrated by using both a hybrid sandwich EIA, combining a HBL-L1 reactive mAb and a HBL-L2-specific mAb, and a dot blot assay

Risk taking and risk sharing: does responsibility matter? (RM/13/045-revised-)

Risk sharing arrangements diminish individuals’ vulnerability to probabilistic events that negatively affect their financial situation. This is because risk sharing implies redistribution, as lucky individuals support the unlucky ones. We hypothesize that responsibility for risky choices decreases individuals’ willingness to share risk by dampening redistribution motives, and investigate this conjecture with a laboratory experiment. Responsibility is created by allowing participants to choose between two different risky lotteries before they decide how much risk they share with a randomly matched partner. Risk sharing is then compared to a treatment where risk exposure is randomly assigned. We find that average risk sharing does not depend on whether individuals can control their risk exposure. However, we observe that  when individuals  are responsible  for their  risk exposure, risk sharing decisions  are systematically conditioned on the risk exposure of the sharing partner, whereas this is not the case when risk exposure is random

Stability of risk attitudes and media coverage of economic news

This paper investigates the impact of exogenous changes in the economic environment on individuals’ risk attitudes. We combine data on media coverage of economic news with information on the self-stated willingness to take risks from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study. The average daily frequency of economic news reports is measured for different time frames preceding the date of the risk attitude elicitation. We find that while a short term increase in good news is positively related to the willingness to take risks, the relation is negative if we consider a long term increase. An increase in negative economic news coverage is negatively related to individuals’ willingness to take risks, irrespective of the time frame. A positive (negative) correlation between bad (good) news coverage and individuals’ worries about the economic state suggests that changes in risk perception may partly mediate the relation between news coverage and risk attitudes