Public Attitudes Toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey
MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper No. 51-2013
36 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2013 Last revised: 12 Dec 2014
There are 2 versions of this paper
Public Attitudes Toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey
Public Attitudes Toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey
Date Written: September 1, 2014
Abstract
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.
Keywords: Public debt, fiscal consolidation, sovereign debt crisis, public attitudes, Germany
JEL Classification: D72, H31, H63
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation