Fiscal Policy Preferences, Trade-Offs, and Support for Social Investment

A common finding in the literature is that social investment policies are broadly popularamong citizens but still politically difficult to implement. This article provides a partialanswer to this puzzle by exploring the fiscal trade-offs associated with such a recalibration.Based on survey data from eight Western European countries, it first explores citizens’fiscal policy preferences with regard to the preferred size of the public sector and the distributionof spending across different subsectors. These preferences are then shown to besignificantly associated with attitudes towards fiscal trade-offs regarding the expansion ofsocial investment policies. The results reveal a political dilemma for policy-makers keen onexpanding social investment: People who traditionally support a large public sector andmore welfare state spending tend to oppose redistributing spending towards social investment,whereas support for such a recalibration is higher among those who have a scepticalview on public spending.Introduction Theoretical framework Empirical analysis Conclusion Supplementary material Data Availability Statement Footnotes Reference