Measuring the attitude towards a European public budget: A cross-country experiment

Abstract

We use a multilevel public goods game to investigate attitudes towards national public budgets and a European public budget in six Member States of the European Union: Italy, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. We test to what extent propensities to contribute to public goods differ across countries. Using two efficiency treatments, we also test whether each country group adjusts its contribution when the relative efficiency of the public goods changes. We find no differences across countries in the propensity to contribute to either public budget. Moreover, all country groups level up their contribution to the European public good following an increase in its relative efficiency. We also devise a questionnaire to assess the impact of a sense of identity on contribution decisions and to control for the impact of COVID-19 and the current war in Ukraine on country and EU perceptions.