This research is a cross-national study of distributive justice norms concerning income distribution. Three laboratory experiments are used to determine what principles individuals choose when judging the fairness of income distributions. The experimental design draws on both normative and empirical research on distributive justice. It is hypothesized that individuals make allocation judgments by relying on four major allocation principles -- equality, need, merit, and efficiency. Allocation norms are analyzed across a diverse population within the United States and cross-nationally by replicating the experiments in Norway. This research is not only be of interest to scholars in fields concerned with distributive justice, including political science, sociology, economics, philosophy, but also to those interested in broader social and political issues such as institutional legitimacy, the development of the welfare state, social policy, and social and political behavior.
