We find that perceptions of crime and individual experience with crime (crime victimization) are positively correlated with left-wing beliefs within countries, controlling for income and other correlates of ideology, in a sample for Latin American countries in the mid-1990's

We use data on political beliefs (broadly, left-right position, meritocracy and origins of poverty) to discuss Venezuela's economic institutions. Our starting point is the large role attributed to beliefs in determining the economic system and the extent of government intervention (see, for...

We study preferences for government action in response to layoffs resulting from different types of labor-market shocks. We consider the following shocks: technological change, a demand shift, bad management, and three kinds of international outsourcing. Respondents are given a choice among no...

Argentina privatized most public utilities during the 1990's but re-nationalized the main water company in 2006. We study beliefs about the benefits of the privatization of water services amongst low and middle income groups immediately after the 2006 nationalization. Negative opinions about the...

We show that data on satisfaction with life from over 600,000 Europeans are negatively correlated with the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. Our preferred interpretation is that this shows that emotions are affected by macroeconomic fluctuations. Contentment is, at a minimum, one of the...

We observe that countries where belief in the quot;American dreamquot; (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know from previous work that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective...

We present a simple model of populism as the rejection of “disloyal” leaders. We show that adding the assumption that people are worse off when they experience low income as a result of leader betrayal (than when it is the result of bad luck) to a simple voter choice model yields a...

We study the impact of two dimensions of trust, namely trust in business elites and trust in government, on policy preferences. Using a randomized online survey, we find that our two treatments are effective in changing trust in Major Companies and in Courts/Government. In contrast to previous...

Sturzenegger's paper details Argentina's transition to an orthodox, center-right government that employed experts like himself to stabilize the economy following 12 years of populist administrations. Four years later, and with inflation twice the level inherited from the populists, there is...

We study a propaganda campaign sponsored by the government against the main political challenger in the days preceding the 2015 Argentine runoff presidential election. Subjects in the treatment group watched an “ad” initially aired during soccer transmissions that was part of this campaign...