American Politics & Public Policy Workshop: Mary McGrath, “Inequality and the Role of Collaboration in Sharing the Spoils”
“Inequality and the Role of Collaboration in Sharing the Spoils”
Speaker: Mary McGrath, Graduate Student in Political Science, Yale University
Abstract: Wealth and power are unequally distributed. What makes those who have more share their resources with those who have less? A leading hypothesis is the “accountability principle”: the deserving poor are those who put in the requisite effort and nevertheless end up at a disadvantage. But recent evidence from developmental psychology suggests that effort alone is not enough. A potential donor’s willingness to share resources depends not just on the recipient having worked, but having worked collaboratively with the donor toward some shared goal. I present results from a real-effort dictator game testing the effect of collaboration on willingness to share. I find that collaborative work increases the amount of money shared with a partner.
Mary McGrath is a graduate student in the Political Science Department, and has a Master’s degree from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.