Near Is My Shirt but Nearer Is My Skin: Ideology or Self-Interest as Determinants of Public Opinion on Fiscal Policy Issues

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Several empirical studies derive that personal positions with respect to policy measures are dominated by ideology instead of narrow self-interest. In the present field study we carried out a telephone survey with 1.003 respondents all over Austria. Instead of measuring selfishness indirectly by using more or less 'objective indicators' for self-interest, we requested respondents to assess directly whether they expect to be affected by policy measures. Our results indicate that such a subjectively measured narrow self-interest explains attitudes towards economic policies at least as good as ideological conviction. In some cases ideology appears to determine whether people feel affected by a proposed policy measure. Terms of use: Documents in

Does the Broad Public Want to Consolidate Public Debt? – The Role of Fairness and of Policy Credibility

“…Pitlik et al. () note that self‐interest might be as important as ideology. Regardless of the view one holds, I take from these studies that ideology is likely to matter and by not controlling for ideology one would risk that results are driven by a mere general ideological attachment to fiscal positions, like fiscal conservatism.…”

“…Fong, ; Alesina and Giuliano, ) and on tax preferences (e.g. Heinemann and Hennighausen, ; Pitlik, Schwarz, Bechter and Brandl, ). These contributions also employ microdata and provide implications on several of the questions asked in this paper, i.e.…”

Does social distrust always lead to a stronger support for government intervention?

“…Calculating the personal costs and benefits of interventions, well-informed citizens arrive at a personal opinion with respect to different policy measures and vote accordingly in democratic elections. This rather simplistic view of individual attitude formation has been challenged from various perspectives, and recent theoretical and empirical studies report that attitudes are also driven by ideologically framed judgments and beliefs, although existing empirical evidence points out that these cannot always be separated clearly (see, e.g., Pitlik, Schwarz, Bechter, and Brandl, 2011).…”

Reforming Welfare States

“…The evidence points to a positive e ect from institutional quality, as quanti ed by EFW, on important variables such as wealth and economic growth (Berggren, 2003;Doucouliagos och Ulubasoglu, 2006) and that institutional change in a free-market direction stimulates economic growth (de Haan et al 2006). An increase in EFW can thus be interpreted as an institutional change in a free-market direction, while a decrease is an institutional change in the opposite direction (Pitlik, 2011). …”

“…26 Self-interest cannot always be separated from ideological convictions, see, inter alia, Pitlik et al (2011). 27 Age is divided by 10 only for better readable presentation of the results.…”