This contribution empirically explores the drivers of labour market reform acceptance for the individual level in Germany. For that purpose we make use of the representative German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). This survey offers data to which extent individuals support benefit cuts, longer working years, cutting subsidies to declining industries, phasing out of employment programmes or a liberalisation of employment protection. Our theoretical considerations suggest that self-interest, information, fairness judgements, economic beliefs and other individual factors such as socialisation under the communist regime in the former German Democratic Republic drive individual reform preferences. Our empirical results support this notion: While we find self-interest to be an important driving force, our results show that a number of factors well beyond the narrow scope of self-interest strongly shape individual reform preferences.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research in its series ZEW Discussion Papers with number
09-004.