Paul Hufe, Ph.D.

Attitudes Toward Inequality and Fairness

Many of our everyday life experiences suggest that humans are social individuals who care about themselves and others. Yet, for a long time, the economic discipline has focused on modeling the purely self-interested homo economicus. Paul Hufe, joint with D. Weishaar and I. Almås, has summarized the extensive experimental literature on deviations from such purely self-interested behavior, with a particular focus on attitudes toward inequality and fairness. This literature shows that many individuals are willing to forgo their own economic gain for a fairer distribution of resources. They further illustrate empirical evidence showing that people differ in what they consider to be fair, and how these fairness views vary within and across countries.

Mr. Hufe’s research interests lie at the intersection of public, labor, and normative economics. Under the overarching theme of equality of opportunity, his research agenda aims to strengthen the methodological toolkit that is used to quantify the extent of inequality of opportunity in current societies. It also examines the circumstantial life factors cause the unequal distribution of life chances.

During his time at CESifo, Paul Hufe will work jointly with Daniel Weishaar on the project “Unfair inequality in the labor market: a global study.” In this project, they collect new data on fairness preferences and perceptions of inequalities in 50 countries around the globe to understand the nature, root causes, and consequences of perceived unfairness in labor markets.

Paul Hufe is a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of Bristol. He is also affiliated with IZA, the CESifo Research Network, IFS, and HCEO. He holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (GBP 1.6m, 2024-2028) for the project “Unfair inequality in the labor market: a global study.” Furthermore, he is currently a Co-I of the European Social Science Genetics Network--a doctoral network funded by European Union’s Horizon Europe program. His doctorate is from LMU Munich and has been a visiting scholar at Cornell University, Princeton University, and FAIR at NHH Bergen.