We investigate whether the field of study influences university students’ political attitudes. To disentangle self-selection from learning effects, we first investigate whether the fields of study chosen by the incoming students correlate with their political attitudes. In a second step we...

Several countries practice a system where laymen, who lack legal education, participate in the judicial decision making. Yet, little is known about their potential influence on the court rulings. In Sweden lay judges (namndeman) are affiliated with the political parties and appointed in...

Der Bericht beschreibt Erkenntnisinteresse, Anlage und Erstellung der Studie 'Entscheidungsträger in Deutschland: Werte und Einstellungen'. Im Mittelpunkt der Befragung stehen die gesellschaftspolitischen Einstellungen und Handlungsmaximen sowie die Karrieremotive und Lebensverläufe der...

This paper identifies indirect and direct colonial rule as causal factors in shaping support for democracy by exploiting a within-country natural experiment in Namibia. Throughout the colonial era, northern Namibia was indirectly ruled through a system of appointed indigenous traditional elites...

Beyond the hopes placed in Africa's emergent middle class as an engine of economic growth, some analysts see this group as a bastion of political stability and enduring democratisation across the continent. This paper's approach differs from that of most studies, which treat the middle class as...

Although economic circumstances have been argued to be a major determining factor of attitudes to redistribution, there is little well identified evidence at the individual level. Utilizing a unique dataset, with detailed individual information, provides new and convincing evidence on the link...

We elicit distributional fairness ideals of impartial spectators using an incentivized elicitation in a large and heterogeneous sample of the German population. We document several empirical facts: i) egalitarianism is the predominant ideal; ii) females are more egalitarian than men; iii) men...

This paper empirically explores the link between mass media coverage of migration and immigration worries. Using detailed data on media coverage in Germany, we show that the amount of media reports regarding migration issues is positively associated with concerns about immigration among the...

We elicit distributional fairness ideals of impartial spectators using an incentivized economic experiment in a large and heterogeneous sample of the German population. Our dataset allows us to relate our experimental data on fairness ideals to a large range of socio-demographic characteristics,...

This paper investigates - in a large heterogeneous sample - the relationship between social preferences on the one hand, and socioeconomic factors and political preferences on the other hand. Socioeconomic factors correlate with social preferences, and social preferences robustly shape political...