Governments' economic support for households during the COVID-19 pandemic and consumer confidence.

To combat the adverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have implemented various economic policies. This study examines how different types of government economic support for households are associated with consumer confidence. Utilizing data from 35 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development for January 2020-October 2021 and applying panel fixed effect and system generalized methods of moments regressions, we show that higher levels of government economic support lead to higher levels of consumer confidence. The results also suggest that government income support for households has a stronger impact than debt/contract relief on consumer confidence during the pandemic in the full sample. Moreover, we find that debt/contract relief is a more effective policy to boost confidence in emerging economies. Finally, COVID-19 fatalities have a significant negative effect on consumer confidence.

Individuals' Financial Satisfaction and National Priority: A Global Perspective.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between financial satisfaction and individuals' preferences for various national priorities (including economic growth, national defense, freedom of speech, and having a beautiful nation). Using the sixth wave of World Value Survey (2010-2014) data for 60 countries, our Probit regression analyses show a positive and significant relationship between individuals' financial satisfaction and individuals' preferences for freedom of speech and having a beautiful nation. We also find that financial satisfaction is negatively associated with the priority of economic growth but not statistically related to the priority of national defense. These findings are robust when we use a Probit model with endogenous regressors and country-level data with a 2SLS estimator. The regression results also show that the preference for a stronger national defense is higher among individuals who are older, married, nationalistic, educated and have jobs in the public sector. Finally, we find that people with lower education and income and those with full-time employment and non-government jobs are more interested in the economic growth of their countries.