Meritocracy and persistent luck
Luca Flora Drucker (Central European University)
In a meritocratic society inequality in economic outcomes that reflects differences in individual achievements is considered fair. However, a particular achievement is not equally difficult for everyone. The study tests two types of differences in difficulties: external circumstances – difficulty of the task an individual faces – and individual ability. In an online experiment, I test whether the reward of achievement changes with information about these differences in difficulties. In the first part of the experiment, participants do a simple task for 15 minutes, and receive their income according to their performance. The difficulty of the task differs across participants externally – some participants get more difficult tasks than others –, and internally – some participants can solve the task faster than others. In the second part, participants redistribute the first part income among themselves in different information treatments based on the information they receive about the difficulties.
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