Laurenz R. K. Günther

Research

My research focuses on the relationship between politicians and citizens. This involves topics like political representation, the rise of populism, polarization, and mistrust toward politicians and political institutions. I analyze these topics in the context of Europe.

At the moment, I focus on two broad research objectives. First, I estimate “political representation gaps,” which measure how policymaking differs from the policy attitudes of voters. Second, I analyze how policymaking should respond to representation gaps. I am also interested in many other topics, like inequality attitudes and low birth rates in Europe.

Working Papers

Political Representation Gaps in Europe

Do parliaments in Europe do what their voters and citizens want? This paper shows that frequently they dont and how these “representation gaps” relate to populism.

Media coverage: IEP@BU1, IEP@BU2, IEP@BU3, The American Saga

Inherited Inequality and the Dilemma of Meritocracy

with Timo Freyer

R&R at Experimental Economics

Many find unequal opportunities unfair. But if people are allowed to support their children or friends opportunities will always be unequal. How do people handle this “Dilemma of Meritocracy”?

Would Europeans Accept Immigrants if they Knew them?

This paper presents a method to estimate attitudes of natives toward immigrants who hold biased beliefs toward immigrants if they were informed about the actual characteristics of immigrants.

Work in Progress

Information Interventions can Increase Opposition to Immigration

Recent research has shown that Europeans overestimate the number of immigrants in their country. This is not true when asking about the number of asylum seekers.

View abstract
It is well known that most Europeans favor reducing immigration to their countries. However, recent research finds that most Europeans also overestimate the number of immigrants in their countries. This has led many to argue that anti-immigration attitudes result from biased beliefs and that policymakers should not follow the demands of their voters. This paper shows that Europeans do not overestimate the number of all types of immigrants. I elicit the beliefs of a representative sample of over 2100 Germans about the number of asylum seekers in Germany in 2020. Contrary to previous studies, I find that Germans strongly underestimate the number of asylum seekers, particularly of those that are not granted asylum. Furthermore, I conduct an information intervention in which I inform random sub-samples of Germans about the actual number of asylum seekers with or without asylum. I find that, if anything, providing information increases anti-immigration attitudes. These results raise doubts that anti-immigration attitudes can be generally dismissed as biased beliefs.