This article enters the international/comparative political economy debate about whether individual-level macroeconomic policy preferences are egocentric and, if so, on what basis (factors, sectors, or firms). It argues that contextual information may function as a precondition for the emergence of egocentric preferences. With a focus on the trade-off between using monetary policy for a domestic or an international goal, it presents evidence from three original American surveys using informative vignettes to show how monetary policy preferences exhibit firm-based egocentric variation: Individuals whose employer does most of its business in overseas markets have a lesser preference for domestic monetary autonomy. It also presents evidence from a survey experiment to show how the strength of this egocentric relationship depends on the informative power of the vignette: A more contextually informative vignette produces a stronger relationship between overseas business activity and a preference against domestic monetary autonomy. R egardless of the issue area, a complete political economy model of policymaking, especially in a democratic context, must characterize individual-level preferences over policy. 1 If we think that politicians take at least some cue for their policy choices based on the preferences of potential voters, then we need to know both what citizens want in terms of economic policy and on what basis their policy preferences are formed. The former is easy to ascertain, but the latter is not. While individual-level preferences in all issue areas exhibit some variation, it has proven hard to explain and predict this variation. The search for a framework to understand the variation in individual-level preferences across different macroeconomic issue areas leads to the long-running political economy behavior debate, now in its second wave. for helpful comments. A codebook with a replication data set and associated do file can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MWNBXO.

Do liberals and conservatives who trust the government have more similar preferences regarding the federal budget than liberals and conservatives who do not? Prior research has shown that the ideological gap over spending increases and tax cuts narrows at high levels of trust in government. We extend this literature by examining whether the dampening effect of trust operates when more difficult budgetary decisions (spending cuts and tax increases) have to be made. Although related, a tax increase demands greater material and ideological sacrifice from individuals than tax cuts. The same logic can be applied to support for spending cuts. We test the trust-as-heuristic hypothesis using measures of revealed budgetary preferences from a population-based survey containing an embedded budget simulation. Our findings show that trusting liberals and conservatives share similar preferences toward spending cuts and tax increases, adding an important empirical addendum to a theory based on sacrificial costs.

Does language choice attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and if so, how? We argue that language-a dynamic instrument for reducing transaction costs-can influence investors' decision to allocate capital. Potential host countries attract investments by coordinating their domestic language policies-especially those in education-to match the language of the potential FDI investor. We subject our argument to three different tests: (i) a cross-sectional sample of all global Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development investments that employs a newly constructed language-ineducation measurement; (ii) a newly assembled time-series cross-sectional data set of all Chinese FDI abroad; and (iii) a detailed case study that uses process tracing to explain Chinese FDI in Indonesia. The results from these tests demonstrate a significant and robust relationship between language and FDI.Although Spain once colonized the Philippines, Spanish has "largely vanished from everyday use" throughout the archipelago (Inquirer 2010). Yet in February 2010, Spain and the Philippines signed an agreement for Spain to help reincorporate the Spanish language into the Filipino education curriculum and make this language available on a large scale. Not coincidentally, this agreement came 2 months before Spanish business executives visited Manila to "explore investment ventures" (Philippines Department of Trade and Industry 2010). This pattern of language policy changes preceding foreign investment decisions did not happen only in the Philippines. A number of other countries actively adopted language policies in hopes of attracting foreign capital. In this article, we ask: Does language attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and if so, how?Our theory builds on an economic argument about transaction costs. Potential receiver-states attract FDI by decreasing transaction costs for foreign investments. We argue that language policies-specifically language-in-education ones-are instrumental to achieve this objective. Potential receiver-states strategically choose to teach the official language of an FDI sender-state. FDI from the sender-state can increase as a result of this policy change. Scholars recognize the international economic effect of sharing a common language. In fact, language is featured prominently in FDI models (B enassy-Qu er e, Coupet, and Mayer 2007;Leblang 2010). Often, the variable measures whether two countries share a common official language using data from Centre d'Etudes Prosepctives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII).We have three concerns with the CEPII measure. First, if language is an instrument to reduce transaction costs, then we cannot focus solely on whether two countries share an official language. Doing so ignores the large set Moonhawk Kim is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research examines the evolution and the consequences of the international trading system in terms of both the multilateral institution of the GATT/WTO and preferential t...

Prior research has shown that citizens demand more public spending for government services but are unwilling to support tax increases to cover the increased costs. Yet the basis for this observed inconsistency in fiscal preferences remains unclear. Some scholars propose that the desire “something for nothing” could be the result of citizens lacking knowledge about taxation, public spending, and the inherent trade‐offs between the two sides of the ledger, while others suggest that citizens sincerely want the benefits without paying the costs. This article contributes to the literature by studying citizens' fiscal priorities under the condition of near‐complete information about the U.S. federal budget. We used an online budget simulation—based on the actual U.S. federal budget—to provide respondents with information about the structure of the federal budget and gather data on their preferred changes in the budget. Further, we conducted a population‐based survey and found that respondents express preferences that are more nuanced—and more coherent—than previously suggested. Related Articles Ariely, Gal. 2011. “Why People (Dis)Like the Public Service: Citizen Perception of the Public Service and the NPM Doctrine.” Politics & Policy 39 (6): 997‐1019. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00329.x Fisher, Patrick. 2008. “The Partisan Foundations of Balanced Budget Politics.” Politics & Policy 33 (4): 617‐641. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2005.tb00216.x Smith, Robert W. 2008. “The Courage to Tax: Rational Choice versus State Budgetary Politics in the South.” Politics & Policy 32 (4): 636‐659. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2004.tb00199.x