Electoral Outcomes, Economic Expectations and the 'Ethic of Self-Reliance'
Carnegie Mellon Behavioral Decision Research Working Paper No. 306
31 Pages Posted: 31 Aug 2002
Date Written: July 30, 2002
Abstract
This paper examines how election outcomes affect individual economic expectations. In particular, we are interested in how differences in economic individualism change the relationship between election outcomes and individual expectations for personal economic well-being. We hypothesize that economic individualists will not link electoral outcomes to expectations for their personal economic well-being, while individuals who are not economic individualists will link the two. We confirm this hypothesis empirically using a postelection survey from the 1994 German Bundestag election.
Keywords: individual economic expectations, economic individualism, German elections
JEL Classification: D72, D84
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation