To study how information about educational inequality affects public concerns and policy preferences, we devise survey experiments in representative samples of the German population. Providing information about the extent of educational inequality strongly increases concerns about educational...

The standard assumption of exogenous policy preferences implies that parties set their positions according to their voters' preferences. We investigate the reverse effect: Are the electorates' policy preferences responsive to party positions? In a representative German survey, we inform...

We argue that a long-run cultural persistence of right-wing ideology can explain the recent rise of right-wing populism. Shifts in the supply of party platforms can interact with this existing demand, and give rise to patterns of historical persistence. We study the context of Germany in the...

We propose that false beliefs about the own current economic status are an important factor for explaining populist attitudes. Along with the subjects' receptiveness to right-wing populism, we elicit their perceived relative income positions in a representative survey of German households. We...

Can direct democracy provisions improve welfare over pure representative democracy? This paper studies how such provisions affect politicians' incentives and selection. While direct democracy allows citizens to correct politicians' mistakes, it also reduces the incentives of elected...

Economic research suggests that investments in early education are generally more successful than investments at later ages. This paper presents a representative survey experiment on education spending in Germany, which exhibits low relative public spending on early education. Results are...

When making collektive desicions, principals (voters or districts) typically benefit by strategically delegating their bargaining and voting power to representatives different from themselves. There are conflicting views in the literature, however, of whether such a delegate should be...

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

Advertisements provide consumers with knowledge about private products, whereas political information is required to provide voters with knowledge of public issues. Modern information technologies and globalization are increasing the exposure of individuals to information. Goods advertising is...