Thread by @FrancescoNicoli

‼️‼️it's publications time!‼️‼️
In this work - co-authored with Roel Beetsma (EU Fiscal Board), Frank Vandenbrouke (Belgian Gov), @anniekderuijter and Brian Burgoon (both UvA), we ask a *key* question: which type of Fiscal Capacity do Europeans want?
⬇️⬇️
academic.oup.com/economicpolicy…

In particular, we use an experiment to causally infer the effect of alternative policy designs on public preferences.
We use a randomized conjoint experiment in 5 key EU countries - NL, FR, ES, IT, DE - to assess hundreds of alternative EU fiscal capacity designs.

Our alternative designs are quite detailed: they vary over several dimensions, including (1) budgetary conditions (2) areas of spending (3) role of the EU Commission (4) degree of cross-national redistribution (5) impact on domestic taxation (6) fines and compliance.

We sampled 2000 people in each country in late February / early March 2020, just when the pandemic was starting. We had also a pilot with Dutch respondents in Nov. 2019. Sample is highly representative, with quotas for gender, age, region, education, income and profession.

Our results are stark: in March 2020, there was a very high support for a common European fiscal capacity! less than 5% of respondents didn't like *any* of the 6 random packages they were shown. Avg support across *all* 600 packages is about 40% in the most conservative estimate.

But which features matter the most?
Well, people do NOT like banking bail-outs, and don't want flat-rate tax increases. They *really* support investing in better healthcare & they like a relatively stronger Commission role as well as clear budgetary rules.

Is the healthcare results driven by the pandemic effects? Well, perhaps. Healthcare is not a typical EU area of spending, but the pandemic may have affected these preferences.
However, check the pre-pandemic (nov. 2019!!) Dutch pilot data. Very high support too (much smaller N).

These results suggest that Europeans were ready to create a European Health Union *with some bite* even before the pandemic, and even more so since then. @anniekderuijter can tell you all you want to know about a #EUhealthUnion if you are interested.

The paper has of course much more in it and I am happy to send it over if you don't have Economic Policy access.

#EUhealth #EuropeanHealthUnion #EUfiscalCapacity #fiscalUnion #Eurobonds

@EHUInitiative @aces_for @GovPA_UGent @ugent @ResearchUGent @Economics_UGent @UvA_AISSR

many thanks to the many of you who have commented, criticised and helped us with this manuscript, and in particular to @Bruegel_org (@GuntramWolff ) and @CEPS_thinktank (@AlcidiCinzia ) for having organized challenging debates on our early findings.

Thanks also to @voxeu & @CESifoGroup for having hosted and distributed pre-peer-reviewed versions of our research.

They are both free-to-read:
Here on VoxEU: voxeu.org/article/stable…
Here on CesIFO: cesifo.org/en/publikation…

Also, many thanks to the outstanding fieldwork by @IpsosNL. Highly recommended!

@UnrollHelper