Capital vs. labour: The effect of income sources on attitudes toward the top 1 percent

We investigate the effects of providing information about the income of top 1% earners on attitudes toward this group. We study a dimension of the income of the richest individuals that has received little attention in previous literature: the proportion of income earned from capital versus labor sources. We conducted an online survey with 2000 French respondents, who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) quantitative information on income levels and sources of the top 1% (two-thirds of respondents); (2) quantitative and qualitative information on income levels and sources of the top 1% (one-third of respondents); or (3) a control group (one-third of respondents). Our findings reveal that: (i) at the baseline, respondents tend to overestimate the income of the top 1%, have no clear priors on their capital vs. labor shares, and want them to pay a higher income tax rate than the current one; (ii) providing quantitative information about the income sources at the top consistently shifts attitudes toward the rich to the unfavorable spectrum. This shift does not result from experimenter demand effects; (iii) individuals most responsive to our treatments vote for left-wing candidates and have egalitarian notions of justice.