Do economics and political Science scholars differ on public choice issues? Survey evidence from Brazil

Abstract

This Working Paper analyses the results of a novel survey carried out to examine and measure how Brazilian scholars of economics and political science—including public administration—tend to agree or disagree on main public choice issues. The conceptual framework identifies 34 issues across 7 representative thematic public choice areas, including assumptions about political actors, normative beliefs about government and voting, elections and economic performance, political parties, platforms, voting and preferences, size of government, individual behaviour (voting-with-feet and free riding), and finally government and the market. The survey results find that the Brazilian political science scholars have relatively higher tendency to agree on public choice issues than economics scholars.