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[courserahecadata]

DATA SET

After looking through the codebook for the OOL study, I have decided that I am particularly interested in opinions on government intervention in the economy. I have added to the codebook questions related to the perception of government intervention, namely whether individuals think the government should see to it every person has a job and a good  standard of living (W2_QM9) and whether they think the government should help poor people (W2_QM11).

RESEARCH QUESTION

While opinions on economic government intervention is a good starting point, I need to determine what it is about these opinions that I am interested in. It strikes me that in people I've met in a personal, academic, and professional contexts, wealthier individuals who objectively belong to higher social classes tend to favor minimal government intervention in the economy, and advocate for free-market efficiency, while individuals with a lower income were usually far more favorable to government intervention when it comes to social and economic matters.

I decided that I am most interested in exploring the association between the level of yearly income and opinions on state intervention in the economy. I added to my codebook a question reflecting income to complete the ones I had added regarding opinions on state intervention, namely yearly individual income (W1_P20). I will also prioritize the question on the government being responsible for everyone having a job and a good standard of living (W2_QM9), rather than helping poor people (W2_QM11), as I think it is more encompassing and closer to the actual research I would like to conduct.

Does an individual income level influence its opinion on government intervention in the economy?

LITERATURE REVIEW

Scientific literature already exists on similar topics, and was found on Google with the search "income and opinion on state intervention", and "income voting behavior"on Google Scholar.

Etchebehere ("Preferences for state intervention and (bias)perceptions of income rank in Uruguay: Evidence of different patterns among income groups", 27th World Congress of Political Science, 2023) measured in Uruguay the correlation between actual and perceived income rank, and preference for state intervention, and found that in low-income individuals, the belief of being better off "relates to fewer preferences for state intervention". Furthermore, he finds that support for intervention in median-income people has been declining over time.

Brooks and Brady ("Income, Economic Voting, and Long-Term Political Change in the U.S., 1952–1996", Social Forces, 1999) have also found that historically, the increase in mean household income has disproportionately favored the Republican party in elections, which is commonly associated with less government intervention, laissez-faire, and individual responsibility.

HYPOTHESIS

My research hypothesis is that yearly individual income (W1_P20) is negatively correlated to expecting the government seeing to it everyone has a job and a good standard of living (W2_QM9), meaning that lower-income individuals tend to be in favor of government intervention in the economy more than higher-income individuals who tend to prefer values like self-reliance and believe in free-market efficiency.