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Behavioural economics

Visible inequality breeds more inequality

Nature volume 526, pages 333–334 (2015)Cite this article

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Experiments suggest that when people can see wealth inequality in their social network, this propels further inequality through reduced cooperation and reduced social connectivity. See Letter p.426

Inequality is a growing concern in many societies1. Like most important social phenomena, it is a complex issue that has many interacting sources and consequences1,2,3. To understand inequality and its dynamics over time, multiple theoretical and empirical approaches are necessary. In this issue, Nishi et al.4 (page 426) use laboratory-style experiments (conducted online) to study how the visibility of wealth inequality in people's social environment shapes the behavioural dynamics of inequality. The attraction of an experimental approach is that it allows the control of factors that are inherently uncontrollable in naturally occurring data. Crucially, for example, the experimenter can control the initial level of inequality and see how inequality evolves as a function of people's behaviour alone5,6.

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Figure 1: Wealth on display.

Florian Kopp/Robert Harding Picture Library

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Gächter is in the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.,

    Simon Gächter

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  1. Simon Gächter
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Correspondence to Simon Gächter.

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Gächter, S. Visible inequality breeds more inequality. Nature 526, 333–334 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/526333a

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