Replication Data for: People Like Us? How Mass Preferences are Shaped by Economic Inequality and Racial Diversity

The U.S. has experienced runaway economic inequality since the 1970s, yet there is not strong public support for government efforts that serve to narrow the growing disparities between citizens. Why? I point to the role of rising racial diversity. I argue Americans believe in conditional equality, where they support equalizing policies as long as they perceive the beneficiaries as people like themselves. However, as the country grows more diverse, citizens are less likely to perceive those around them as people like themselves. Using time-series cross-sectional data of the American states, I demonstrate that as racial diversity increases, the likelihood the public will respond to increasing inequality by supporting bigger government declines. This study provides evidence for the mechanism usually implied but rarely tested by studies of diversity and policy: mass preferences.

自20世纪70年代起，美国便出现了失控的经济不平等（economic inequality），但公众并未对政府为缩小公民间日益扩大的差距所采取的举措表现出强烈支持。这一现象背后的原因是什么？本文将此归因于种族多样性不断攀升的影响。笔者认为，美国人信奉有条件的平等：即只要他们认为政策受益者与自身属于同一群体，便会支持均等化政策。然而，随着美国社会日益多元化，民众愈发难以将身边的他人视作与自己同类。通过使用美国各州的时间序列横截面数据（time-series cross-sectional data），本文证实：随着种族多样性提升，公众因应对日益加剧的不平等而支持扩大政府规模的可能性会随之下降。本研究为多样性与政策研究中通常被隐含却极少得到实证检验的机制——大众偏好（mass preferences）——提供了直接的实证依据。