Suchergebnisse

"Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Untersuchung von Bestimmungsgründen für die Akzeptanz von sozial- und wirtschaftspolitischen Maßnahmen in der österreichischen Bevölkerung. Insbesondere wird die Rolle der Faktoren Eigeninteresse, politische Ideologie und Wissen untersucht. Vor allem die Berücksichtigung von Unterschieden im Wissensstand in der Bevölkerung stellt ein Novum dieser Arbeit im Vergleich zu bisherigen Studien dar. Auf Basis einer repräsentativen Umfrage weisen die Ergebnisse der Studie darauf hin, dass das Eigeninteresse als Determinante der Akzeptanz im Vordergrund steht. Bei Personen mit einem hohen wirtschaftlichen Wissensstand drückt sich die Relevanz des Eigeninteresses verstärkt durch die subjektive Betroffenheit aus. Bei Personen mit geringerem Wissen manifestiert sich das Eigeninteresse eher durch politisch/ideologische Positionierungen." (Autorenreferat)

Abstract The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused disruptions in international trade and highlighted the dependency of small open economies in Europe on imports, especially of energy. These events may have changed Europeans' attitude towards globalization. We study two waves of representative population surveys conducted in Austria, one right before the Russian invasion and the other two months later. Our unique dataset allows us to assess changes in the Austrian public's attitudes towards globalization and import dependency as a short-term reaction to economic turbulences and geopolitical upheaval at the onset of war in Europe. We show that two months after the invasion, anti-globalization sentiment in general has not spread, but that people have become more concerned about strategic external dependencies, especially in energy imports, suggesting that citizens' attitudes regarding globalization are differentiated.

Are people happier if they experience freedom from regulation, and how do individual attitudes towards liberalisation influence personal life satisfaction? Based on data from European and World Values Surveys and the Economic Freedom of the World project we find evidence for positive effects of low regulation and pro-market attitudes on life satisfaction. Paradoxically, people who are opposed to market oriented policies sometimes benefit most from deregulation.

Long-term beneficial welfare state reforms not only face opposition from powerful insiders and beneficiaries of the system in place. While potential losers from a policy change are often relatively easy to spot, ewll-designed reforms generate mostly diffuse gains, and the potential winners are much more difficult to identify. Moreover, gains from reforms regularly do not accrue immediately but only after a costly adjustment or a frictional re-organisation process. Policy change on a large scale hence occasionally triggers political resistance from politically vocal losers, but sometimes also from prospective winners. Overcoming both the 'rational' and ostensibly 'irrational' obstacles to policy change is thus a core challenge of political reform management. A key message is that important factors for successful change have found too little attention in the literature, compared to technical aspects of reform implementation In that respect, policy bundling and developing economic compensation strategies are important devices to mitigate opposition to reform, However, communication of reform goals, credible political commitment, conformity with fairness norms and moral beliefs, trust formation and social learning play important roles for acceptability of reforms in society.

The need to balance austerity with growth policies has put government efficiency high on the economic policy agenda in Europe. Administrative reforms which boost the efficiency of the administration can alleviate the trade-off between consolidation and public service provision. Against such backdrop, this study explores the determinants of efficiency enhancing public administration reforms for a panel of EU countries using a novel reform indicator. The findings support the political-economic reasoning: An economic and fiscal crisis is a potent catalyst for reforms, but a powerful bureaucracy effectively constrains the opportunities of a crisis to promote this particular type of reform. Furthermore, there is evidence for horizontal learning from other EU countries, and for vertical learning associated with a particular type of EU transfers.

The need to balance austerity with growth policies has put government efficiency high on the economic policy agenda in Europe. Administrative reforms which boost the efficiency of the administration can alleviate the trade-off between consolidation and public service provision. Against such backdrop, this study explores the determinants of efficiency enhancing public administration reforms for a panel of EU countries using a novel reform indicator. The findings support the political-economic reasoning: an economic and fiscal crisis is a potent catalyst for reforms, but a powerful bureaucracy effectively constrains the opportunities of a crisis to promote this particular type of reform. Furthermore, there is evidence for horizontal learning from other EU countries, and for vertical learning associated with a particular type of EU transfers.

This paper investigates empirically for the first time the impact of experts' agreement on voter turnout. Data were obtained when voters, advised by four independent experts, had to decide on the next move against a chess world champion. Analyzing total voter turnout as well as individual voters' behavior in a panel data subsample, & employing OLS median & ARMAX regression techniques, we find that the degree of expert agreement matters for voter turnout. Higher voting costs are also shown to have a statistically significant negative impact on participation. 5 Tables, 2 Figures, 27 References. [Copyright 2003 Elsevier B.V.]

Legislative bargaining theory suggests that fiscal transfers among member states of a federation are determined to a substantial degree by political bargaining powers. Malapportionment of the states' population in the legislature is claimed to lead to disproportionally higher benefits to overrepresented states. The present paper analyses empirically the distribution of fiscal transfers in Germany's intergovernmental transfer system over the period 1970-2002. It can be shown that overrepresented states in the upper house receive disproportionate shares of transfers, while malapportionment in the lower house does not seem to matter. We also find empirical evidence that overrepresentation became more important over time.

Legislative bargaining theory suggests that fiscal transfers among member states of a federation are determined to a substantial degree by political bargaining powers. Malapportionment of the states' population in the legislature is claimed to lead to disproportionally higher benefits of overrepresented states. The present paper analyses empirically the distribution of fiscal transfers in Germany's intergovernmental transfer system over the period 1970-2002. It can be shown that overrepresented states in the upper house receive disproportionate shares of transfers, while malapportionment in the lower house does not seem to matter. We also find empirical evidence that overrepresentation became more important over time.