Hoff-Elimari, EivindBardi, AnatÖstman, KristinaMatti, Simon2019-07-032019-07-032014Hoff-Elimari, E., Bardi, A., Matti, S., & Östman, K. (2014). Collective action problems: Disentangling possible feedback loops between government policies and the public’s value-change. European Journal of Government and Economics, 3(1), 24-46. https://doi.org/10.17979/ejge.2014.3.1.42952254-7088http://hdl.handle.net/2183/23369[Abstract] Solving collective action problems, such as poverty reduction or climate change, depends on interactions between governments' and voters' preferences regarding pro-social actions. This paper examines whether the overall direction of change in pro-social public policy precedes public value-change, rather than the other way around. We examine change in the public’s pro-social values in six European countries, as measured by the European Social Survey (ESS) during 2002-2012. In these countries, we conducted an expert survey to rate governmental policy that expresses these values over the same period, thereby examining value-change in governmental policy. The chronological comparison of value-change of the public with that of respective governments suggests that changes in pro-social government policies may drive public value-change rather than vice versa. This complements previous studies focused on the opinion-policy connection. Possible political implications are discussed. The promising findings of this initial study point to the importance of conducting larger-scale future studies.engAtribución 4.0 Españahttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ValuesPolicy feedbackDemocracyjournal articleopen access