Study Significance
Previous observational studies typically find that wealthy people who live near poorer neighbors express stronger support for redistribution, yet a prominent field experiment reported the opposite; resolving this contradiction clarifies whether proximity to poverty causally shifts elites' policy preferences or instead reflects who selects into different neighborhoods.
Measuring Exposure and Support
The authors linked a three-wave panel survey to detailed Danish registry data on local income composition to track changes over time in respondents' local exposure to poor individuals and their stated support for redistribution.
Comparison of Within-Person and Between-Person Associations
They estimated within-individual (fixed-effects) models that exploit changes in the same respondents' exposure across the three waves and compared those results to conventional between-individual (cross-sectional) associations.
Analysis and Estimation
Key Findings - Within-individual (fixed-effects) models: When wealthy individuals experience increased exposure to poor people in their local surroundings, they become less supportive of redistribution. This pattern suggests a negative contemporaneous effect of proximity to poverty on the rich's redistribution attitudes. - Between-individual models: Cross-sectional comparisons reproduce the commonly reported positive association—wealthy people living near more poor neighbors tend to be more pro-redistribution. - Interpretation: The divergent patterns indicate that self-selection on stable individual characteristics (who chooses to live where) likely explains the predominance of positive findings in prior observational work, while within-person changes reveal the opposite short-term relationship.
Main Findings and Interpretation
Within-individual models show that when wealthy individuals experience increased exposure to poor people nearby, they become less supportive of redistribution, whereas between-individual models reproduce the usual positive association; the authors interpret this divergence as evidence that self-selection on stable individual characteristics explains much of the positive link reported previously.
