Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T07:54:24.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fair Share? Equality and Equity in American Attitudes Toward Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2021

Ryan Brutger Open the ORCID record for Ryan Brutger [Opens in a new window]  and
Brian Rathbun Open the ORCID record for Brian Rathbun [Opens in a new window]
Get access

Abstract

American politicians repeatedly and strenuously invoke concerns about fairness when pitching their trade policies to their constituents, unsurprisingly since fairness is one of the most fundamental and universal moral concepts. Yet studies to date on public opinion about trade have not been designed in such a way that they test whether fairness is important, nor whether the mass public applies fairness standards impartially. Drawing on findings in social psychology and behavioral economics, we develop and find evidence for an “asymmetric fairness” argument. In a national survey of Americans, we find strong evidence that fairness, conceived in terms of equality, is crucial for understanding support for potential trade deals and support for renegotiating existing ones. Americans view as most fair and most preferable outcomes in which concessions and benefits are equal across countries, especially when those equal benefits match productivity. However, we find that Americans have an egoistically biased sense of fairness, responding particularly negatively to any outcome that leaves the United States relatively worse off—a sense of injustice that does not extend to the same degree to relative gains for Americans.

Keywords

Tradepublic opinionfairnessequalityequity
Type
Research Note
Information
International Organization , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , Summer 2021 , pp. 880 - 900
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, J. Stacy. 1965. Inequity in Social Exchange. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 2, edited by Berkowitz, Leonard, 267–99. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Anderson, William D., and Patterson, Miles L.. 2008. Effects of Social Value Orientations on Fairness Judgments. The Journal of Social Psychology 148 (2):223–46.10.3200/SOCP.148.2.223-246CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Axelrod, Robert, and Hamilton, William Donald. 1981. The Evolution of Cooperation. Science 211 (4489):1390–96.10.1126/science.7466396CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Babcock, Linda, and Loewenstein, George. 1997. Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases. Journal of Economic Perspectives 11 (1):109–26.10.1257/jep.11.1.109CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babcock, Linda, Loewenstein, George, Issacharoff, Samuel, and Camerer, Colin. 1995. Biased Judgments of Fairness in Bargaining. The American Economic Review 85 (5):1337–43.Google Scholar
Bagwell, Kyle, and Staiger, Robert W.. 1999. An Economic Theory of GATT. American Economic Review 89 (1):215–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, Michael M., Genovese, Federica, and Scheve, Kenneth F.. 2019. Interests, Norms and Support for the Provision of Global Public Goods: The Case of Climate Co-Operation. British Journal of Political Science 49 (4):1333–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, Michael M., and Liesch, Roman. 2020. Reforms and Redistribution: Disentangling the Egoistic and Sociotropic Origins of Voter Preferences. Public Opinion Quarterly 84 (1):1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, Joyce, Dickhaut, John, and McCabe, Kevin. 1995. Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History. Games and Economic Behavior 10 (1):122–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Margolis, Michele F., and Sances, Michael W.. 2014. Separating the Shirkers from the Workers? American Journal of Political Science 58 (3):739–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blount, Sally. 1995. When Social Outcomes Aren't Fair: The Effect of Causal Attributions on Preferences. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 63 (2):131–44.10.1006/obhd.1995.1068CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brutger, Ryan, and Kertzer, Joshua D.. 2018. A Dispositional Theory of Reputation Costs. International Organization 72 (3):693–724.10.1017/S0020818318000188CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeScioli, Peter, Massenkoff, Maxim, Shaw, Alex, Petersen, Michael Bang, and Kurzban, Robert. 2014. Equity or Equality? Moral Judgments Follow the Money. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 281 (1797):20142112.Google ScholarPubMed
Deutsch, Morton. 1975. Equity, Equality, and Need: What Determines Which Value Will Be Used as the Basis of Distributive Justice? Journal of Social Issues 31 (3):137–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, Sean. 2018. The Politics of Fair Trade: Moving Beyond Free Trade and Protection. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Sean D. 2010. The Fair Trade Challenge to Embedded Liberalism. International Studies Quarterly 54 (4):1013–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, Ernst, and Fischbacher, Urs. 2002. Why Social Preferences Matter—The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives. The Economic Journal 112 (478):C1–C33.10.1111/1468-0297.00027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, Ernst, and Schmidt, Klaus M.. 1999. A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114 (3):817–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finalyson, Jock A., and Zacher, Mark W.. 1981. The GATT and the Regulation of Trade Barrier: Regime Dynamics and Functions. International Organization 35 (4):561–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiske, Alan Page. 1991. Structures of Social Life: The Four Elementary Forms of Human Relations: Communal Sharing, Authority Ranking, Equality Matching, Market Pricing. Free Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Morgan R., Obradovich, Nick, Sun, Lijun, Woon, Wei Lee, LeVeck, Brad L., and Rahwan, Iyad. 2018. Detecting Reciprocity at a Global Scale. Science Advances 4 (1):eaao5348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottfried, Matthew S., and Trager, Robert F.. 2016. A Preference for War: How Fairness and Rhetoric Influence Leadership Incentives in Crises. International Studies Quarterly 60 (2):243–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grieco, Joseph M. 1988. Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism. International Organization 42 (3):485–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guisinger, Alexandra. 2017. American Opinion on Trade: Preferences Without Politics. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrmann, Richard K., Tetlock, Philip E., and Diascro, Matthew N.. 2001. How Americans Think About Trade: Reconciling Conflicts Among Money, Power, and Principles. International Studies Quarterly 45 (2):191–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imai, Kosuke, Keele, Luke, Tingley, Dustin, and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2011. Unpacking the Black Box of Causality: Learning About Causal Mechanisms from Experimental and Observational Studies. American Political Science Review 105 (4):765–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. 1986. Reciprocity in International Relations. International Organization 40 (1):1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kertzer, Joshua D., and Brutger, Ryan. 2016. Decomposing Audience Costs: Bringing the Audience Back into Audience Cost Theory. American Journal of Political Science 60 (1):234–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kertzer, Joshua D., and Rathbun, Brian C.. 2015. Fair Is Fair: Social Preferences and Reciprocity in International Politics. World Politics 67 (4):613–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenstein, George F., Thompson, Leigh, and Bazerman, Max H.. 1989. Social Utility and Decision Making in Interpersonal Contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57 (3):426–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lü, Xiaobo, Scheve, Kenneth, and Slaughter, Matthew J.. 2012. Inequity Aversion and the International Distribution of Trade Protection. American Journal of Political Science 56 (3):638–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Mutz, Diana C.. 2009. Support for Free Trade: Self-Interest, Sociotropic Politics, and Out-Group Anxiety. International Organization 63 (3):425–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margalit, Yotam. 2012. Lost in Globalization: International Economic Integration and the Sources of Popular Discontent. International Studies Quarterly 56 (3):484–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, Diana C., and Kim, Eunji. 2017. How Ingroup Favoritism Affects Trade Preferences. International Organization 71 (4):827–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven. 2012. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Penguin.Google Scholar
Powell, Robert. 1991. Absolute and Relative Gains in International Relations Theory. American Political Science Review 85 (4):1303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabin, Matthew. 1993. Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics. The American Economic Review 83 (5):1281–302.Google Scholar
Rabin, Matthew. 1998. Psychology and Economics. Journal of Economic Literature 36 (1):11–46.Google Scholar
Tingley, Dustin, Yamamoto, Teppei, Hirose, Kentaro, Keele, Luke, and Imai, Kosuke. 2014. Mediation: R Package for Causal Mediation Analysis. Journal of Statistical Software 59 (5):1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Brutger and Rathbun supplementary material

Brutger and Rathbun supplementary material

Download Brutger and Rathbun supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 159.7 KB