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German Macro
The starting point of this project is the question of whether the macroeconomics of the German political establishment does indeed differ, as it often seems to do, from standard textbook macroeconomics: in particular, the former appears to neglect demand management (although it may be quite interventionist in other ways), to reject debt relief and to emphasise structural reform designed to improve competitiveness as the (only) key to economic growth. How far is this true? How much of whatever difference exists is due to a well worked out set of ideas in the form of Ordoliberalism? How does it relate to Germany's own experiences in different periods? How far is this the result of political preferences and how much do the idiosyncrasies of these German views matter, for the development of the Eurozone and indeed the health of the German economy?
Public Attitudes Toward Fiscal Consolidation
The poor state of public finances in many countries has led to calls for fiscal consolidation. In practice, implementing concrete consolidation measures appears to meet with public resistance, suggesting that the success of consolidation efforts strongly depends on the popularity of the chosen measures. To identify public attitudes toward fiscal consolidation and alternative consolidation measures, we conducted a survey among 2,000 German citizens. Applying ordered and multinominal logit models, we test theory-based hypotheses about the determinants of individual attitudes toward public debt. We find that, inter alia, personal economic situation, time preferences, fiscal illusion, and trust in politicians exert a significant impact on attitudes toward fiscal consolidation and preferences for alternative consolidation measures.
Convergence in EMU
Convergence is one of the key goals of the European Union and has been at the centre of many recent debates. This paper strives to identify the types of convergence that are pivotal to the well-functioning of the euro area and discusses their role in the context of the EMU’s governance framework. Evidence suggests that key economic indicators have converged for some member states before coming to a halt (or even diverge) with the onset of the global financial and euro area debt crises. As economic convergence depends mostly on the policies of the member states, we call for a strengthening of national responsibility for structural reforms. We discuss strengths and shortcomings of the recent...
Economic Deprivation and Radical Voting
This paper studies the impact of economic deprivation on radical voting. Using a unique dataset covering different indicators of economic deprivation as well as federal election outcomes at the county-level in Germany for the period from 1998 to 2017, we examine whether economic deprivation affects the share of votes for radical right and left-wing parties using instrumental variable estimation. Our results suggest that an increase in economic deprivation has a sizeable effect on the support for radical parties at both ends of the political spectrum. The higher a county's rate of relative poverty, the average shortfall from the national median income, and the poverty line, the higher the vote share of radical right-wing and left-wing parties. We also provide evidence that regional variation in economic deprivation gave rise to the electoral success of the populist right-wing party AfD in the federal election of 2017. Our findings thus indicate that a rise in economic deprivation may undermine moderate political forces and be a threat to political stability.
Between Fear Mongers and Samaritans
We utilise information experiments embedded in a representative population survey to elicit the German public's attitude towards the right of asylum. We randomly assign the interviewees to different groups and 'treat' each group with different information about the asylum-seekers that came to Germany in 2015 and 2016. The treatments involve information about (i) the total number of asylum-seekers, (ii) the fiscal costs as well as (iii) the potential long-term economic benefits associated with accepting refugees, (iv) the share of Muslim asylum-seekers, and (v) the share of war refugees. We find that providing information about the fiscal costs associated with accepting refugees, and about th...
Media's Role in the Making of a Democrat
This paper explores the causal influence of media content on voting behavior. We exploit a natural experiment involving access to West German TV within the German Democratic Republic. Focusing on federal and state election outcomes in the post-reunification decade (i.e., a time at which TV content was harmonized), we find that municipalities that had access to Western TV broadcasts before reunification have lower vote shares for left-wing and right-wing extremist parties. With regard to potential channels, we provide evidence based on survey data that GDR citizens with access to West German TV were less loyal to the socialist regime, less hostile toward foreigners, and exhibited higher levels of social capital. Our findings thus support the notion that access to free media influences political attitudes and facilitates the consolidation of democracy.
How to Finance Climate Change Policies?
Climate change policies have been rising to the top of the global political agenda, but how should governments finance them? Public economists propose solutions based on economic theory, but their political feasibility depends on voters' support, and ordinary households often neglect economic theory and have different views about efficiency and fairness. We design a large-scale information experiment to assess a representative population's beliefs about alternative forms of financing. We randomly provide information about which groups contribute more to or benefit from climate change and compare the support for alternative financing schemes across informed and uninformed consumers. Informed ...
