Political Knowledge and Attitudes Toward (De)Centralization in Europe

Abstract

The allocation of competences between the EU and Member States is one of most burning issues in the history of the European integration. From a theoretical economic perspective, this ongoing process calls into question the theory of fiscal federalism. In this paper, we study empirically the impact of European citizens' knowledge about the EU on their attitudes toward the allocation of competences. We use micro-data from the Eurobarometer survey. We find that more knowledgeable citizens are more willing to favour centralization of competences to the EU in areas where public intervention by individual Member States causes externalities, where scale economies in the provision of public goods are important and where redistributive and stabilization functions have to be pursued.