If You Can Be Reborn, What Is Your Desirable Income Distribution? : An Experiment of Rawls's Justice

抄録

　In this paper, we examine what kinds of the elements of distributive principles, such as maximizing the amounts of the lowest income and maximizing the amounts of the average income, individuals prefer behind the "thin" veil of ignorance using an experimental research. Behind the thin veil, although individuals know the structure of income distribution in given imaginary societies, they do not know who they are, how talented and rich they are. The conjoint analysis, which is used to analyze the results of our experiments, reveals that behind the thin veil, individuals prefer the society that provides higher lowest income to the one that provides higher average income or larger gap. Following this result, we conclude that, contrary to previous theoretical and experimental research, Rawls's idea can be supported behind the thin veil. (132 words)