Compensating the losers: The (limited) elite–public gap in trade politics

Abstract Compensatory policies for the losers of trade are a key feature of the liberal economic order established after the Second World War. Legislators have a variety of policy options to choose. But do political elites and the public have the same attitudes toward compensatory policies? We expect an elite–public gap with the public relatively less supportive of spending policies and more supportive of tax cuts and trade restrictions than political elites. Moreover, we reason that ideology should matter more for elites than the public. Unique data from a survey with legislators in 19 European countries and public opinion surveys in three countries allow us to test this argument. We find that elites and the public indeed differ in their attitudes toward compensatory policies. However, these differences pale in comparison to variation in support for various compensatory policies. These findings shed light on the politics of compensation and on the political attitudes of elites and the public more broadly.