Does money make people selfish? Right-wing? Meritocracy fans? Redistribution opponents? Morally self-serving?
No!
A new paper used the quasi-experimental nature of lottery wins and twin births to estimate that the relationship between wealth and attitudes is largely noncausal.
The only significant effect was that people became ever so slightly more opposed to taxes on wealth, real estate, and inheritances. There aren't even effects on winners' kids' political participation.
So the only effect is for the most self-serving of policy views. Funny, that.
Now, representativeness. Was the sample like the rest of the Swedish population?
Yes, pretty much. Survey respondents, parents, and their children, look to be representative, as others have found.
Now, you might be asking: How else have these large, register-linked, lottery studies been used?
Glad you asked, because they've been used for many outcomes. Let's look at some examples.
Lottery samples have shown us that the average effect of wealth on crime is bupkes.
Lottery samples have shown us ambiguous effects of wealth on happiness.
Lottery samples have shown us that people reduce their labor supply in response to winning. This level of reduction is, as @karlbykarlsmith pointed out, the amount expected by barebones neoclassical economics.
Lottery samples have been used to investigate effects of wealth on life satisfaction more than once.
Lottery samples have been used to investigate effects of wealth on health, showing results that are basically null.
Lower-quality lottery studies have shown us extreme results for effects on mental health, and the best lottery study has shown us a very small effect.
This is a good reminder that meta-analyses can mislead, where the best studies enlighten.
And finally, lottery samples have been used to investigate the effects of wealth on kids' cognitive abilities.
They've shown us that family wealth doesn't causally impact IQs.
These lottery studies are the highest around. They're large, they usually include non-winners, and they come with good measurements, making them prime studies for informing us about wealth effects.
To read this latest one on politics, click the link: nber.org/papers/w32777
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