Sources of politico-economic attitudes: students’ introspections

Lange, Astrid; Pitsoulis, Athanassios

doi:10.1007/s11218-012-9195-1

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Gandal et al (2005), however, compare economists and other social scientists with respect to value priorities that are more closely related to political ideologies (hedonism, power, achievement, benevolence, and universalism). An exploratory study investigating economics students' sources on which they report to base their political attitudes is to be found in Lange and Pitsoulis (2013).…”

Section: The Effects Of Training In Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Support for free-market policies and reforms: Does the field of study influence students' political attitudes?

Fischer

Kauder

Potrafke

et al. 2017

European Journal of Political Economy

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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. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractSince opinion leaders are usually university graduates, the field of study has an influence on public support for economic policies and policy reforms intended to enhance efficiency because advocating such policies often requires appreciation of the beneficial roles of markets and economic freedom. We investigate whether the field of study influences German university students' political attitudes. We disentangle self-selection from learning effects and reveal systematic differences between incoming students' political attitudes across eight fields of study. In a second step we explore how the students' political attitudes change as they progress in their academic training. Only studying economics has an unambiguous pro-market influence on political attitudes: by the time of graduation, economics students are some 6.2 percentage points more likely than they were in their initial year of study to agree with free-market policy positions. Studying humanities and natural sciences has a pro-leftist influence.JEL Code: A13, A22, B40, D01, Z13.

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Section: The Effects Of Training In Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Support for free-market policies and reforms: Does the field of study influence students' political attitudes?

Fischer

Kauder

Potrafke

et al. 2017

European Journal of Political Economy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Several studies (e.g., [18,19]) have focused exclusively on the beliefs about whether markets offer a fair way of allocating goods and services. Other studies (e.g., [20]) have distinguished between attitudes towards the fairness of an allocation system and attitudes towards its functionality or efficiency. Few studies have tried to reveal which ideas respondents are using to inform their attitudes (either towards fairness or efficiency).…”

Section: General Attitudes Towards Markets and Government In The Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Surveys of students of business or economics (e.g., [11,[18][19][20]31]) routinely find that they are more 'pro-market' than other students. However, as noted by some of these researchers, this could simply be a selection effect: students who are more pro-market may be more likely to choose to study these subjects.…”

Section: The Effect Of Studying Economics On Attitudes Towards the Romentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Economics and Attitudes to Market Solutions to Environmental Problems

2017

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Climate change challenges governments to reduce emissions, and to gain support for such actions from their citizens. This can be in the form of taxation or legislation, or other forms of government interventions. In previous research, several instruments have been developed to capture attitudes towards the roles of markets and governments in the economy. Some of these instruments have assumed that respondents will have the same attitude towards the role of markets and governments, regardless of the context (e.g., welfare, environment, health) or the form of government intervention (law, taxation, subsidy, spending etc.). However, these studies have not examined attitudes towards, or belief in, the efficacy of government intervention in markets, through microeconomic policies on taxation (e.g., duties levied on particular products) or subsidies. This paper reports on the results of taking such a specific focus, that is, investigating economics students' knowledge of, and attitudes towards, government interventions in markets, specifically addressing the problem of climate change. We make use of unique, two-wave longitudinal data from Swedish university students. The data were collected during their initial semester at the university. The first data collection was performed at the beginning of the semester, August/September 2014, and the second wave of data collection was performed in December/January 2014/2015, at the end of the semester. We were able to match 414 students between the first and second survey. The results show that students of economics change their policy attitudes and become more knowledgeable in economics. After one semester, they are more likely to think of economic instruments/incentives (taxes and subsidies) as good and efficient policy instruments, and less likely to think that other instruments (regulation and information) are good and efficient policy instruments. However, further analyses show that knowledgeable students do not have different attitudes toward environmental policy instruments, compared to students who do not answer the questions correctly. Hence, there seems to be some other factor affecting students in economics during their first semester, that changes their attitudes towards environmental policy instruments.

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“…En esta línea, encontramos estudios acerca de si la formación en Economía promueve el desarrollo de actitudes más egoístas o poco proclives a la cooperación (Bauman, y Rose, 2011;Frank et al, 1993;Haucap y Just, 2010;Hellmich, 2019;Wang et al, 2012), sobre si afecta a la conciencia ambiental y a la consideración de las intervenciones en este ámbito (Cifuentes-Faura et al, 2020;Harries et al, 2017) e, incluso, sobre su impacto en los REIDICS, 9, 2021, pp. 189-206 comportamientos sexistas y políticos e ideológicos (Fischer et al, 2017;Lange y Pitsoulis, 2013;Paredes et al, 2020).…”

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