| hypothesis | status | proxy |
|---|---|---|
| H1 Resources and solidarity | Tested now | Income rank within country, financial resilience, subjective household finances |
| H2 Ideology moderation | Tested now | Resource × right-ideology interactions |
| H3 Dependants / insurance moderation | Tested now | Resource × dependants interactions |
| H4 Economic insecurity and welfare chauvinism | Tested now | Resource terms in the welfare-chauvinism model |
| H5 Inequality as context | Not testable from available files | Would require a country-level inequality file such as a harmonised Gini |
PEPS-Y Income: Resources and Political Solidarity
1 Setup
This report follows preregs/income_prereg and the theory draft in papers/Income wealth and inequality as drivers of political solidarity 20260218.docx. The current pilot file is rich enough for the preregistered individual-level analyses, interaction checks, secondary outcomes, and item-level ordinal robustness checks. The weighted specification is still out of scope because the pilot .sav does not contain design weights.
The cleaned pilot sample contains 355 interviews across 7 country samples. The main outcome is the preregistered territorial solidarity index, defined as the mean of the local, country, and EU willingness-to-pay items.
2 Preregistered Hypotheses
H1 Resources and solidarity.Respondents with higher economic resources should report higher political solidarity.H2 Ideology moderation.The positive resource-solidarity association should be stronger among left-leaning respondents and weaker among right-leaning respondents.H3 Dependants / insurance moderation.Resource effects should be stronger among respondents with dependants, consistent with an insurance logic.H4 Economic insecurity and welfare chauvinism.Lower resources should predict stronger support for deserving groups relative to migrants.
3 Testing Strategy
The report keeps the preregistration’s structure but presents it in a compact pilot format. The main model predicts territorial solidarity from the three resource measures, right ideology, dependants, and the preregistered interaction terms. I then repeat the same specification for the secondary outcomes, apply an FDR correction across the preregistered outcome family for the main resource terms, and re-estimate the item-level models with ordered logit.
For interpretation, I use the same verdict language as in the core1 and core2 pilot reports. A hypothesis is confirmed in the pilot when the key estimate has the preregistered sign and is reasonably precise. It is mixed when the direction fits the expectation but the evidence is limited to one indicator or one secondary outcome. It is not confirmed when the estimates are near zero, inconsistent, or point in the wrong direction.
4 Outcome and Construct Checks
The theory text treats territorial and group solidarity as related but not identical. Here I check that in two simple ways. First, Cronbach’s alpha asks whether the items within each block move together closely enough to be treated as one scale. Second, the eigenvalue plot is a quick way to ask how many broader dimensions sit behind all eight items at once. If all items were basically measuring one thing, the first eigenvalue would dominate and the later ones would drop off sharply. In this pilot, the territorial items hang together reasonably well, and the group items do too, but the full eight-item battery does not behave like one perfectly unified measure. In plain language: people who are solidaristic in one domain also tend to be solidaristic in the other, but the two domains are not interchangeable, so it makes sense to keep reporting them separately.
| scale | alpha |
|---|---|
| Territorial solidarity | 0.794 |
| Group solidarity | 0.849 |
| All solidarity items | 0.889 |
5 Visual Checks
These descriptive plots are not substitutes for the regression models, but they help show whether the main resource measures move with territorial solidarity in any obvious way. Financial resilience is the five-point item about how easily the household could deal with an unexpected financial shock, with higher values meaning more resilience. Income rank is not raw income but the respondent’s percentile rank within their own country sample, so higher values mean relatively higher income within country. Subjective finances is the four-point self-assessment of how comfortably the household is managing financially, again coded so higher values mean a more comfortable situation.
The Subjective finances panel is less smooth than the others because that variable only has a few response categories, so several observations pile up at the same x-values. That is a feature of the pilot data rather than a coding problem.
6 Main OLS Model
The dependent variable here is the territorial-solidarity index: the simple mean of the three willingness-to-pay items for the local level, the country level, and the EU level, after recoding them so higher values always mean more solidarity. In other words, each respondent gets one summary score for how willing they are to support redistribution across territorial targets.
All substantive predictors are standardized before entering the model. That means the coefficients can be read on a common scale: each one shows the expected change in the territorial-solidarity index associated with a one-standard-deviation increase in that predictor, holding the controls constant. This makes it easier to compare the relative size of income rank, financial resilience, subjective finances, ideology, and the interaction terms in the same table.
| term_label | estimate | conf_int | p_value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subjective finances × dependants | 0.395** | [0.156, 0.634] | 0.001 |
| Subjective household finances | 0.045 | [-0.120, 0.209] | 0.597 |
| Income × ideology | 0.037 | [-0.061, 0.135] | 0.460 |
| Income rank within country | 0.032 | [-0.119, 0.182] | 0.680 |
| Subjective finances × ideology | 0.028 | [-0.102, 0.159] | 0.672 |
| Income × dependants | 0.009 | [-0.201, 0.219] | 0.934 |
| Resilience × dependants | 0.007 | [-0.233, 0.246] | 0.957 |
| Dependants in household | -0.014 | [-0.247, 0.220] | 0.908 |
| Financial resilience | -0.071 | [-0.248, 0.106] | 0.430 |
| Resilience × ideology | -0.083 | [-0.202, 0.035] | 0.169 |
| Right ideology | -0.306*** | [-0.418, -0.193] | <0.001 |
The main model does not show a broad positive resource gradient in solidarity. None of the three resource measures is clearly associated with the territorial index once ideology, dependants, and the interaction terms are included. The clearest and most stable coefficient is not about resources at all: right ideology is strongly associated with lower solidarity. The only preregistered interaction that stands out is the positive subjective finances × dependants term, which suggests that feeling financially secure matters more for respondents with dependants than for others.
7 Interaction Plots
The first plot shows how the predicted territorial-solidarity score changes with income rank across the ideological spectrum. The second shows the strongest preregistered interaction in the pilot: subjective finances matter more when respondents have dependants.
8 Hypothesis Assessment
| hypothesis | hypothesis_text | how_tested | pilot_verdict | evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H1 | Respondents with higher economic resources report higher political solidarity. | Main territorial-solidarity model plus the preregistered group-solidarity model using income rank, financial resilience, and subjective household finances. | Not confirmed in the pilot | Territorial solidarity: income beta = 0.032, 95% CI [-0.119, 0.182], p = 0.680; resilience beta = -0.071, 95% CI [-0.248, 0.106], p = 0.430; subjective finances beta = 0.045, 95% CI [-0.12, 0.209], p = 0.597. Group solidarity: income beta = -0.002, 95% CI [-0.141, 0.138], p = 0.983; resilience beta = -0.045, 95% CI [-0.199, 0.11], p = 0.574; subjective finances beta = 0.065, 95% CI [-0.067, 0.197], p = 0.335. |
| H2 | The positive resource-solidarity link is stronger among left-leaning respondents and weaker among right-leaning respondents. | Interactions between each resource indicator and right ideology in the territorial-solidarity model. | Not confirmed in the pilot | Income × ideology: beta = 0.037, 95% CI [-0.061, 0.135], p = 0.460; resilience × ideology: beta = -0.083, 95% CI [-0.202, 0.035], p = 0.169; subjective finances × ideology: beta = 0.028, 95% CI [-0.102, 0.159], p = 0.672. |
| H3 | The resource-solidarity link is stronger among respondents with dependants. | Resource × dependants interactions in the territorial-solidarity model, checked again on the group and deserving-target outcomes. | Mixed pilot evidence | Territorial model: income × dependants beta = 0.009, 95% CI [-0.201, 0.219], p = 0.934; resilience × dependants beta = 0.007, 95% CI [-0.233, 0.246], p = 0.957; subjective finances × dependants beta = 0.395, 95% CI [0.156, 0.634], p = 0.001. The strongest secondary signal appears for subjective finances among the group and deserving outcomes. |
| H4 | Economic insecurity predicts higher welfare chauvinism. | Welfare-chauvinism model using the three resource indicators as the preregistered insecurity proxies. | Not confirmed in the pilot | Income rank: beta = -0.052, 95% CI [-0.246, 0.142], p = 0.600; resilience: beta = 0.069, 95% CI [-0.127, 0.265], p = 0.491; subjective finances: beta = -0.087, 95% CI [-0.248, 0.074], p = 0.290. |
| H5 | Higher country-level inequality lowers solidarity and raises welfare chauvinism. | Contextual inequality model listed in the preregistration. | Not testable in the pilot file | No country-level inequality file is available in the repo, so the pilot cannot estimate this contextual step. |
Substantively, the pilot suggests that economic resources are not doing the bulk of the work in this dataset. The dominant and most consistent pattern is ideological: right-leaning respondents report lower solidarity across the outcome family, especially toward migrants. The preregistered resource interactions also do not support a broad self-interest story. Instead, the only recurring moderation signal comes from subjective household finances among respondents with dependants, which fits the paper’s insurance logic more than a simple income-gradient argument. At the same time, the welfare-chauvinism hypothesis is not clearly supported in the pilot.
9 Secondary Outcomes and FDR Correction
This section keeps the preregistered distinction between the main outcome and the broader family of related outcomes. The reason for doing this is simple: once we test the same predictors across several outcomes, some “significant” results can appear by chance even when there is no stable pattern. The Benjamini-Hochberg false-discovery-rate correction is a way to be more cautious without being as severe as a Bonferroni correction. It asks: after taking the whole family of tests into account, which signals still look noteworthy?
The tables below therefore do two things at once. They show whether the resource terms behave similarly across the main territorial outcome, the group-based outcomes, and welfare chauvinism; and they show how much confidence we should have in those signals once multiple testing is acknowledged.
9.1 Territorial Solidarity
| outcome_label | term_label | estimate | conf.low | conf.high | p.value | p.value.fdr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Territorial solidarity index | Financial resilience | -0.071 | -0.248 | 0.106 | 0.430 | 0.717 |
| Territorial solidarity index | Income rank within country | 0.032 | -0.119 | 0.182 | 0.680 | 0.977 |
| Territorial solidarity index | Subjective household finances | 0.045 | -0.120 | 0.209 | 0.597 | 0.607 |
9.2 Group-Solidarity Outcomes
| outcome_label | term_label | estimate | conf.low | conf.high | p.value | p.value.fdr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deserving-target solidarity | Financial resilience | -0.017 | -0.158 | 0.124 | 0.814 | 0.814 |
| Deserving-target solidarity | Income rank within country | -0.022 | -0.158 | 0.113 | 0.747 | 0.977 |
| Deserving-target solidarity | Subjective household finances | 0.030 | -0.085 | 0.145 | 0.607 | 0.607 |
| Migrant-target solidarity | Financial resilience | -0.086 | -0.316 | 0.144 | 0.465 | 0.717 |
| Migrant-target solidarity | Income rank within country | 0.030 | -0.179 | 0.239 | 0.782 | 0.977 |
| Migrant-target solidarity | Subjective household finances | 0.117 | -0.081 | 0.315 | 0.247 | 0.559 |
| Overall group-solidarity index | Financial resilience | -0.045 | -0.199 | 0.110 | 0.574 | 0.717 |
| Overall group-solidarity index | Income rank within country | -0.002 | -0.141 | 0.138 | 0.983 | 0.983 |
| Overall group-solidarity index | Subjective household finances | 0.065 | -0.067 | 0.197 | 0.335 | 0.559 |
9.3 Welfare Chauvinism
| outcome_label | term_label | estimate | conf.low | conf.high | p.value | p.value.fdr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welfare chauvinism | Financial resilience | 0.069 | -0.127 | 0.265 | 0.491 | 0.717 |
| Welfare chauvinism | Income rank within country | -0.052 | -0.246 | 0.142 | 0.600 | 0.977 |
| Welfare chauvinism | Subjective household finances | -0.087 | -0.248 | 0.074 | 0.290 | 0.559 |
10 Item-Level Ordered Logit Robustness
The item-level checks ask whether the main patterns are being driven by only one territorial or group target. They also use an estimator that matches the ordinal response scales more closely than OLS.
10.1 Territorial Targets
| outcome_label | term_label | estimate | conf.low | conf.high | p.value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local community | Subjective household finances | 0.688 | 0.357 | 1.030 | 0.000 |
| Local community | Income rank within country | 0.101 | -0.279 | 0.480 | 0.603 |
| Local community | Dependants in household | -0.134 | -0.799 | 0.531 | 0.693 |
| Local community | Financial resilience | -0.292 | -0.677 | 0.092 | 0.136 |
| Local community | Right ideology | -0.671 | -0.978 | -0.375 | 0.000 |
| Other EU countries | Subjective household finances | 0.250 | -0.052 | 0.554 | 0.105 |
| Other EU countries | Financial resilience | 0.094 | -0.258 | 0.445 | 0.600 |
| Other EU countries | Income rank within country | 0.007 | -0.357 | 0.373 | 0.969 |
| Other EU countries | Dependants in household | -0.085 | -0.718 | 0.551 | 0.791 |
| Other EU countries | Right ideology | -0.821 | -1.107 | -0.543 | 0.000 |
| Own country | Subjective household finances | 0.665 | 0.329 | 1.010 | 0.000 |
| Own country | Dependants in household | 0.056 | -0.612 | 0.727 | 0.869 |
| Own country | Income rank within country | 0.001 | -0.382 | 0.382 | 0.995 |
| Own country | Financial resilience | -0.216 | -0.597 | 0.164 | 0.264 |
| Own country | Right ideology | -0.563 | -0.866 | -0.268 | 0.000 |
10.2 Deserving Targets
| outcome_label | term_label | estimate | conf.low | conf.high | p.value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children | Subjective household finances | 0.273 | -0.048 | 0.599 | 0.097 |
| Children | Dependants in household | 0.272 | -0.398 | 0.947 | 0.426 |
| Children | Income rank within country | -0.029 | -0.421 | 0.363 | 0.885 |
| Children | Financial resilience | -0.088 | -0.463 | 0.287 | 0.644 |
| Children | Right ideology | -0.197 | -0.488 | 0.089 | 0.181 |
| Older people | Income rank within country | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Older people | Financial resilience | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Older people | Subjective household finances | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Older people | Right ideology | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Older people | Dependants in household | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Poor people | Subjective household finances | 0.579 | 0.256 | 0.911 | 0.001 |
| Poor people | Financial resilience | 0.007 | -0.368 | 0.382 | 0.969 |
| Poor people | Dependants in household | -0.071 | -0.747 | 0.603 | 0.835 |
| Poor people | Income rank within country | -0.274 | -0.679 | 0.126 | 0.181 |
| Poor people | Right ideology | -0.672 | -0.988 | -0.368 | 0.000 |
10.3 Migrant Targets
| outcome_label | term_label | estimate | conf.low | conf.high | p.value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EU migrants in country | Subjective household finances | 0.387 | 0.080 | 0.697 | 0.014 |
| EU migrants in country | Income rank within country | 0.183 | -0.182 | 0.551 | 0.328 |
| EU migrants in country | Dependants in household | -0.191 | -0.818 | 0.435 | 0.549 |
| EU migrants in country | Financial resilience | -0.224 | -0.577 | 0.128 | 0.213 |
| EU migrants in country | Right ideology | -0.985 | -1.279 | -0.701 | 0.000 |
| Non-EU migrants in country | Subjective household finances | 0.406 | 0.101 | 0.717 | 0.010 |
| Non-EU migrants in country | Income rank within country | 0.080 | -0.290 | 0.456 | 0.672 |
| Non-EU migrants in country | Financial resilience | -0.104 | -0.467 | 0.259 | 0.575 |
| Non-EU migrants in country | Dependants in household | -0.123 | -0.761 | 0.516 | 0.705 |
| Non-EU migrants in country | Right ideology | -1.301 | -1.625 | -0.995 | 0.000 |
11 Notes
- The pilot file does not contain design weights, so all results here are unweighted.
income_rank_countryis built as a within-country percentile rank to keep the resource measure comparable across country samples.- The current report is best read as a prereg-consistent pilot analysis rather than the final confirmatory paper model set.
12 Appendix
12.1 Missingness Diagnostic
| variable | n_total | n_missing | pct_missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| dependants | 355 | 69 | 19.4 |
| education_level | 355 | 52 | 14.6 |
| income_rank_country | 355 | 35 | 9.9 |
| fresil | 355 | 29 | 8.2 |
| ecohhld | 355 | 9 | 2.5 |
| ideology_right | 355 | 7 | 2.0 |
| employment_status | 355 | 2 | 0.6 |
| gender_binary | 355 | 1 | 0.3 |
| solidarity_territorial | 355 | 0 | 0.0 |
| age | 355 | 0 | 0.0 |
| model | n | pct_of_total |
|---|---|---|
| Main territorial model | 210 | 59.2 |
| Group-solidarity model | 210 | 59.2 |
| Welfare-chauvinism model | 210 | 59.2 |