Distributional Preferences and Political Behavior∗

We decompose distributional preferences into fair-mindedness (weight on oneself vs. others) and equality-efficiency tradeoffs, and measure both at the individual level in a large and diverse sample of Americans. We find considerable heterogeneity in both the extent of fairmindedness and willingness to trade off equality and efficiency, much of which cannot be explained by standard socioeconomic or demographic variables. Subjects’ equality-efficiency tradeoffs predict their political decisions: equality-focused subjects are more likely to have voted for Barack Obama, and to be affiliated with the Democratic Party. Our findings shed light on how American voters are motivated by their distributional preferences. JEL Classification Numbers: C91, D64.