ABSTRACT

Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic affects all European countries, the ways in which these countries are prepared for the health and subsequent economic crisis varies considerably. Financial solidarity within the European Union (EU) could mitigate some of these inequalities but depends upon the support of the citizens of individual member states for such policies. This paper studies attitudes of the Austrian population – a net-contributor to the European budget – towards financial solidarity using two waves of the Austrian Corona Panel Project collected in May and June 2020. We find that individuals (i) who are less likely to consider the Covid-19 pandemic as a national economic threat, (ii) who believe that Austria benefits from supporting other countries, and (iii) who prefer the crisis to be organized more centrally at EU-level show higher support for European financial solidarity. Using fixed effects models, we further show that perceiving economic threats and preferring central crisis management also explain attitude dynamics within individuals over time. We conclude that cost–benefit perceptions are important determinants for individual support of European financial solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

抽象的

尽管Covid-19大流行影响了所有欧洲国家，但这些国家为健康和随后的经济危机做准备的方式却大不相同。欧盟内部的财务团结可以缓解其中的一些不平等现象，但取决于各个成员国公民对此类政策的支持。本文使用2020年5月和2020年6月收集的两次“奥地利电晕小组”项目研究了奥地利人口（欧洲预算的净贡献者）对金融团结的态度。我们发现个人（i）不太可能考虑Covid-19大流行是对国家经济的威胁，（ii）认为奥地利受益于支持其他国家，（iii）谁更喜欢将危机集中在欧盟一级进行组织，他们显示出对欧洲金融团结的更高支持。使用固定效应模型，我们进一步表明，感知经济威胁和偏爱中央危机管理还可以解释个人随时间推移的态度动态。我们得出的结论是，成本收益观念是Covid-19大流行期间个人对欧洲金融团结的支持的重要决定因素。