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Knowledge and Attitude Towards European Monetary Union

 
Paper:ewp-mac/9810001
From:    
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 08:24:16 -0500

Abstract:
The European Monetary Union (EMU) has been the subject of fierce controversies both among professional economists and ordinary people. This paper analyses the association between the degree of information of ordinary people and their opinion on EMU. In this context, we are concerned with basic information and not knowledge based on academic research. Usually, questionnaires shy away from including question that test the knowledge of probands on specific issues. However, there exists a European-wide survey, Eurobarometer 39 (1993), that includes some questions which can help to distinguish respondents according to their level of knowledge on European Union. In a first step, a knowledge index is computed from the four knowledge questions given in the survey. Then this indicator is utilised in a cross-country comparison and it is shown to which extent its average varies among the original 12 EU-members. In a further analysis, the bivariate relationship of the knowledge index with attitudes towards EMU is investigated. It is found that better informed respondents are relatively more in favour of EMU. This result is strengthened by the outcome of a bivariate correspondence analysis. To assess the robustness of the positive association between the degree of knowledge and attitude towards EMU, the analysis is repeated in the framework of a multivariate regression model. Again the positive association between information about EU and attitude towards EMU holds. At the end of the paper, a policy conclusion is put forward arguing that by raising the level of EU knowledge people's opinion towards further monetary integration could be influenced positively.

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EconWPA began as a conversation between Bob Parks and Larry Blume on January 28, 1993. I located Paul Ginsparg's archive (then xxx.lanl.gov) and he graciously installed his software on a Sun Sparc system which was supporting the department of economics email and computation. EconWPA began accepting papers July 1, 1993 and had ftp, email, gopher and web interfaces. The web interface for submissions was engineered into existence in July 1995. A complete and catastrophic machine failure in 1999 caused the loss of EconWPA's email new paper announcment service at which time there were over 15,000 subscriptions with over 8,000 unique email addresses.

In 2005, Arts and Sciences commandeered the computing services that I had provided to the Department of Economics since 1987. Some might say that the department was sold out, others would (erroneously) claim that centralization is efficient, and still others would claim that I have few marketing skills.

I was told that I could keep operating EconWPA (as well as many other services including rfe.wustl.edu, barnett.wustl.edu, and three RePEc servers) but I would receive no support (hardware, software, or anthing else) and (as had been the case) no compensation. At that point, given the apparent low valuation of my activities by the department, and university, it made no sense for me to continue operating EconWPA or other services.

Thanks to all who have supported EconWPA in the past.

A Chinese curse states May you live in intersting times. I have. Bob Parks - Jan 2006