“Inequality is rising in many countries across the world, and finding better policies to act against it is quite urgent. But we can’t just study what the effects of policies are,” said Stefanie Stantcheva, Ph.D. an economics professor at Harvard University and a guest speaker at a Feb. 9 Fordham lecture. “We also need to understand how people think about these policies.”

Stantcheva spoke at Fordham’s third distinguished lecture in economics, titled “How People Think About the Economy: Evidence from Social Economics Surveys.” She shared her newest research on how people view taxation and other policies that redistribute wealth to the poor. 

People tend to think about redistribution policies in four ways, said Stantcheva. How will they impact economic activity? Who will win or lose? Are people entitled to keep their income or should they redistribute their wealth? And how much can we trust in the government—the institution that puts forth these policies? 

The question that people are most concerned about is who will win or lose, along with the fairness of the policy, said Stantcheva. The problem, she added, is that we have very different ideas about what is fair.

Stantcheva and her colleagues examined four key factors that influence people’s perceptions on policy fairness: social mobility, immigrants, racial attitudes, and self-ranking in comparison to peers. They distributed surveys to thousands of people across several countries, including the U.S., to better understand their beliefs and the reasoning behind them. 

How Negative Experiences Change Views on Inequality 

One survey examined how people ranked their income level in relation to their peers and how their perception of their social position influenced their views on equity policies. The researchers found that people who ranked themselves more highly tended to believe that differences in income were fairer. They largely attributed their high income to their “hard work” rather than luck and believed that high-income earners deserved their income. They were also less supportive of redistribution policies, said Stantcheva. 

But the high earners responded differently when they experienced a negative event. In the survey, they discussed the impact of negative events, including unemployment, disability, and hospitalization. 

“What we can see is that a negative event makes people think that inequality is less fair, and a positive event like a promotion at work makes them think that inequality is more fair,” Stantcheva said. “There is much less effect on [beliefs about inequality when you consider]stickier views, like your political affiliation or your perception of how much of success is due to effort versus luck.” 

Opposing Views on Race and Racial Inequities

Another project explored how attitudes toward race and racial inequities shape support for redistribution policies in the U.S. Stantcheva surveyed non-Hispanic Black and white adults and teenagers across the U.S. They were asked about their stance on the economic conditions and opportunities of Black and white Americans, their views on racial issues and causes of racial inequities, and their level of support for race-targeted and general redistribution policies. 

The most controversial topic was causes of racial inequities and how to remedy them, said Stantcheva. 

“What’s very important is that … it doesn’t depend on how big you think inequities are. It actually really depends on why you think those gaps exist to start with,” she said. 

In the survey results, Democratic respondents from both races pointed to slavery in colonial America, long-standing discrimination, and racism as the causes of ongoing racial gaps. They supported income-targeted redistribution and race-targeted policies. On the other hand, many white Republican respondents said that lack of effort and individual decisions were the culprits of racial inequities. They were less likely to support the policies advocated by their counterparts.

What was incredibly striking was that these partisan gaps were already very prevalent among teenagers, said Stantcheva. 

“Teenagers, who themselves yet don’t have a political affiliation and don’t vote yet, still respond in a manner that’s very aligned with their parents’ political affiliation,” she said. “These youths are already very, very entrenched at a very young age.” 

Don’t Just Show Facts—Explain Their Story

Stantcheva and her colleagues wanted to know if they could change people’s policy views, so they conducted another experiment. First, they showed people facts about earning and opportunity gaps between Black and white Americans. This failed to sway anyone. But when they explained to the same group of people the causes and consequences of systemic racism—redlining, for example—that shifted people’s policy views, Stantcheva said. 

“Simply showing people how unequal circumstances and opportunities are doesn’t change their beliefs on why these are unequal and doesn’t change the narrative that they have in their mind … about why these gaps exist,” Stantcheva said. 

The lecture was organized by the Department of Economics’ Climate Committee and co-sponsored by the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and the Arts and Sciences Council. The inaugural 2019 lecture featured Janet Currie, professor at Princeton University and co-director of Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing. The second and most recent lecture featured Darrick Hamilton, professor and founding director of the Institute on Race and Political Economy at The New School.

Watch a full recording of the lecture below: 

“This talk comes out of having—after a year and a half of lockdown, terror, and isolation—the opportunity to encounter the work of Black artists that I was not familiar with, and to be able to encounter it in ways that made the spaces of their exhibition much clearer and more fraught to me,” Campt said in the Feb. 3 webinar. 

Campt is a professor at Brown University and a Black feminist therorist. She has authored five books, including the newly released A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (The MIT Press, 2021), which explores the work of contemporary Black artists. Her webinar explored the work of three Black artists that were not included in her newest book: Maxwell Alexandre, Troy Monches-Michie, and Jennifer Packer. Through different mediums, their artwork collectively probes different parts of the Black identity—including masculinity, queer desire, and vulnerability—and establishes critical dialogue in the largely white art world, said Campt. 

She recalled her recent visit to Maxwell Alexandre’s New Power exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France, which features paintings of Black and brown people in scenes of everyday life. As museum visitors contemplate the illustrated people, the figures in the paintings also observe their real-life onlookers. While viewing the artwork, Campt arrived at an uncomfortable realization. 

“In their gallery, all the visitors are Black. In mine, I am the only non-white spectator for the two hours I spend in the space. It’s a contrast I’ve internalized as normal—an expectation of being out of place that usually overtakes me as I approach the counter of a museum. It is equally palpable when I pass the threshold of a gallery and am met with stares or a complete lack of acknowledgement from blasé gallery staff who fail to look up from their counters,” Campt said. “New Power upends the dynamics of being out of place by recentering those often neglected and relegated to this position.”

Alexandre’s art revealed something else to Campt. As she walked around the gallery, she saw Black security guards—both the illustrated and real-life versions. When a lively group of young people arrived at the gallery, she noticed a Black security guard who closely monitored them. 

“Watching the guard as he shadowed them while moving through the gallery, I was struck by the fact that the art gallery is one of the few places where Black folks, often armed, are permitted to actively surveil white audiences,” Campt said. “What do the guards think of encountering their painted simulacra in spaces where they are usually overlooked or made invisible? … Sadly, both my French and my nerves failed to let me pose these questions. But it’s nevertheless one of the central questions posed by Alexander and articulated unequivocally in New Power … How might we lay claim to these spaces in ways that refuse not only a white gaze of consumption or exploitation, but instead initiate moans of reclamation and redress?” 

In a Q&A with the audience, Campt explained her creative process every time she encounters new art. In addition to considering the artwork, she observes the actual space surrounding the piece, the sounds of the gallery, and the people within the room, and then records her observations on an iPad. 

What’s most important is not what we literally see in the moment, but how we respond to the artwork, she said. 

“When I say that I’m writing to images, I’m writing from that response that they are soliciting from me. And in doing that, I’m trying to create a dialogue,” she said. 

At the end of the webinar, moderator Brandy Monk-Payton, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, said she observed in Campt’s work “this kind of insistence on the local, the intimate, and the interior as a way to sort of remain vigilant in some respects.”

“I’m wondering how we can sort of remain vigilant in supporting understanding of a Black gaze in this moment, this proliferation of wonderful media makers, creatives,” Monk-Payton said.

Campt said that the key to vigilance is discomfort. 

“What I’m talking about in terms of a ‘Black gaze’ is art that makes us feel uncomfortable. Artwork that makes us work. Not artwork that’s good, per se, but artwork that’s good because it’s hard,” Campt said. “How easy is this? How comfortable do I feel with that? And what does it mean to question that comfort?” 

This event was co-sponsored by the Arts and Sciences Council, the Division of Mission Integration and Ministry, and the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer.