Attitudes Towards Issues of Social and Economic Policy

The available literature on people's attitudes towards issues of social and economic policy reaches very different conclusions. Some studies find that attitudes reflect individual utility, but more recent ones find political orientation to be more important. In the present study, WIFO uses a representative survey to investigate the determinants of the acceptance of reforms to social and economic policy in Austria. In the survey both the knowledge of economics and (individual) expectations about the results of the reforms are taken into account. It finds that people's attitudes towards most issues and measures of social and economic policy are quite homogeneous irrespective of ideological and socio-demographic categories. In addition, the study looks at how opinions are made among economists. It finds that for economists, ideological orientation matters more when forming an attitude towards social and economic policy reforms. Moreover, their opinion is closely linked to their professional environment, just like their opinion on the way other people make opinions: while (academic) researchers think that considerations of fairness are the most important determinant of people's attitudes, researchers in lobby groups think that maximisation of individual utility explains how most people form an opinion.