Risk perceptions, income transformations and inequality

We examine the relationship between perceptions of risk and income levels b y exploiting the formal relationship between risk analysis and inequality a nalysis. Using a questionnaire-experimental approach, we investigate the ef fect of income transformations on people's orderings of distributions. We f ind that, while Dalton's conjecture is confirmed for probability distributi ons, the corresponding result is not confirmed for income distributions. (C ) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.