Inequalities have increased over the last thirty years. However, this increase has not been the same in every country. Moreover, the perception of these inequalities differs across countries in a paradoxical way: concern about inequality is the largest in Europe, where it has been actually slighter. Differences between actual inequalities and their perception could be explained by a difference of values in the three regions of study, USA, Europe and Japan. Does the perception of inequalities matter more than the objective determinants of inequalities as it leads to different forms of redistribution? Does the fact of having different values make the concept of "fairness" take different forms in each region?

This international workshop is co-organized by EHESS (Fondation France-Japon de l’EHESS) and Doshisha University (Life Risk Research Center) in the framework of the research project "Inequalities and Preference for Redistribution" supported by the Toyota Foundation.

Keynote Speech

Christina Fong (Carnegie Mellon University): "Redistributive Politics with Target-Specific Beliefs"

Session I: Poverty Perception, Attitude towards Government Role, and Preference for Redistribution

Zhou Xun (Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics)

Ryo Kambayashi (Hitotsubashi University), Sébastien Lechevalier (EHESS) & Marc Jenmana (PSE)

Session II: Political Economy Perspective

Andrew E. Clark (Paris School of Economics)

Toshiaki Tachibanaki (Kyoto Women’s University) & Sayaka Sakoda (Doshisha University)

Session III: Asian Cases

Conchita D’Ambrosio (University of Luxembourg)

Arnaud Lefranc (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)

Kunio Urakawa (Kyushu University)