Income distribution preferences and regulatory change in social dilemmas

We present results from an experiment where we elicit preferences over regulatory policies of social dilemmas for small groups. These policy choices differ only in income distribution and are made after a common group experience of an unregulated social dilemma game. We model two policies: a traditional grandfathering allocation of pollution permits and an egalitarian public trust fund. We find a sizeable fraction of our participants favor the public trust, indicating that social preferences are not sufficiently expressed during the interactive social dilemma game. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved