Peter Andre, briq postdoctoral fellow since January, has been selected as the winner of this year’s Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award in the area of behavioral economics. The prize is funded by the international CESifo research network based in Munich and aims at identifying promising young researchers. Last year’s winner in the field behavioral economics was briq postdoc Suanna Oh (see briq newsroom article). Previous winners include briq research director Florian Zimmermann and briq research affiliate Matt Lowe.
Peter’s paper “Shallow Meritocracy” investigates whether people consider other people’s circumstances when judging their merits and accomplishments. Meritocracies aspire to reward hard work but promise not to judge individuals by the circumstances into which they were born. However, the choice to work hard is often shaped by individual chances and incentives resulting from one’s personal situation.
The award-winning study shows that people, in fact, often neglect personal circumstances and their effect on life choices when evaluating another person’s merits. In an experiment, US participants judge how much money workers deserve for the effort they exert. Unequal circumstances discourage some workers from working hard. Nonetheless, participants reward the effort of disadvantaged and advantaged workers identically, regardless of the circumstances under which choices are made.
Additional experiments identify an important underlying mechanism. Individuals understand that choices are influenced by circumstances. But, as people do not know what exactly would have happened on a level playing field, individuals base their merit judgments on the only reliable evidence they possess: observed effort levels.
See also the video interview: Three questions with Peter Andre