Evelyne Hübscher

Central European University | CEU · Department of Public Policy

Why do individuals' preferences for redistribution often diverge widely from their material self-interest? Using an original online survey experiment spanning eight countries and 12,000 respondents across Latin America, one of the most unequal regions in the world, we find significant evidence for an under-explored explanation: misconceptions regar...

In recent decades, governments in many Western democracies have shown a remarkable consensus in pursuing fiscal austerity measures during periods of strained public finances. In this paper, we show that these decisions have consequences for political polarization. Our macro-level analysis of 166 elections since 1980 finds that austerity measures in...

IMF interventions are often associated with a decline in the political stability of the countries where the Fund intervenes. Studies examining this claim, however, face the challenge of disentangling the impact of the IMF from the impact of the crisis that triggered the intervention. To address this challenge, we conduct survey experiments in Greec...

Fiscal policy is an integral part of a country's growth model. An export-led strategy requires a reduction of fiscal deficits in order to promote cost competitiveness, while a demand-led strategy requires fiscal flexibility to manage domestic demand. This chapter shows that governments in fact subordinate their fiscal policy to the macroeconomic re...

Political opposition to fiscal adjustments has varied significantly across countries. Our analysis links this variation to differences in the congruence of voter attitudes towards fiscal trade-offs across political blocs in different countries. These differen- ces in attitudes, in turn, coincide with the implications of the distinct macroeconomic g...

Governments have great difficulties to design politically sustainable responses to rising public debt. These difficulties are grounded in a limited understanding of the popular constraints during times of fiscal pressure. For instance, an influential view claims that fiscal austerity does not entail significant political risk. But this research pot...

In recent decades, governments in many Western democracies have shown a remarkable consensus in pursuing austerity during periods of strained public finances. In this paper, we show that these decisions have consequences for political polarization. Our macro-level analysis of 166 elections since 1980 finds that fiscal restraint increases both elect...

Political opposition to fiscal adjustments has varied significantly across countries. Our analysis links this variation to differences in the congruence of voter attitudes towards fiscal trade-offs across political blocs in different countries. These differences in attitudes, in turn, coincide with the implications of the distinct macroeconomic gro...

This paper examines two crucial questions related to coalition politics and representative democracies. How do parties' ideological positions translate into cabinet policy positions? And how does the relative impact of parties vary over the legislative term. Using an original dataset of 74 social and budgetary laws from nine German coalition govern...

The book critically assesses the impact of party governments in different institutional settings on welfare state generosity and labour market reforms. Its key findings contradict earlier established views on the impact of leftist governments on welfare state policies. Specifically, left-wing governments are pursuing clientelistic policies when fac...

This paper analyzes how different levels of political constraints influence the reform outcomes of ideologically different party governments. The statistical analyses show that leftist governments facing high level of political constraints privilege the core workforce by increasing the redistributive generosity of core social security programs whil...

The European debt crisis has uncovered serious tension between democratic politics and market pressure in contemporary democracies. This tension arises when governments implement unpopular fiscal consolidation packages in order to raise their macroeconomic credibility among financial investors. Nonetheless, the dominant view in current research is...

This paper examines the capacity of governments to implement fiscal reforms in times of austerity. Unlike existing studies, which mostly focus on gradual policy changes like government spending, this analysis distinguishes between consolidation events and consolidation size to examine fiscal reforms. This strategy clarifies contradictory results in...

When do governments implement fiscal consolidation measures? Since such policies are unpopular, governments with low levels of electoral support should be hesitant to put them forward. They can, however, strategically time these measures at the beginning of the legislative term to minimize electoral punishment. In contrast, governments with high le...

Abstract will be provided by author.

This paper examines the political mechanisms of welfare state policymaking in two countries with differing levels of institutional and political constraints, Germany and Ireland. The study analyzes the joint impact of political constraints and varying party governments on different dimensions of labor market policymaking. It comes to the conclusion...