Making Americans Less European
posted by Frank Pasquale
How do we explain the divergence between the US and so many other developed countries when it comes to social welfare issues? I looked at the issue last year, noting Spencer Overton’s conclusion that “Less than one percent of the U.S. population makes financial contributions over $200 to federal candidates, and . . . [o]f those who contribute over $200, approximately 85 percent have household incomes of $100,000 or more. . . .” Now Scott Ganz and Kevin Hassett propose that youth sports may actually be driving the difference:
A recent scholarly paper by economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser of Harvard University and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth College found that countries tend to build large welfare states when citizens believe that success in life is largely determined by luck. . . . Americans are remarkably different from Europeans in this regard. If you ask Americans whether the economically disadvantaged are poor because they are lazy or unlucky, 60 percent say lazy. If you ask Europeans, only 26 percent finger laziness. Alesina and his colleagues argue that these attitudes shape society by shaping governmental and social institutions.
But why do these attitudes exist? A big part of the answer may be found in sports. A 1999 study by developmental psychologists Françoise D. Alsaker and August Flammer found American children spend more time participating in athletics than Europeans. In certain cases—America compared with France, for instance—the gap is quite substantial. A 1996 study by Michigan State University sports psychologist Martha E. Ewing and Vern D. Seefeldt, former director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, found that 45 percent of all eligible American youths play in an agency-sponsored league, like Little League baseball or Pop Warner football. That is 22 million children each year who get an infusion of the American work ethos.
I am so glad that US children are spending more time on sports and less on trivialities like physics, foreign languages, or math. Otherwise they might subscribe to such troublingly European ideals as the difference principle, global warming, or the four freedoms.
Admittedly, I have to attribute my own distrust of cultural explanations to time spent at Oxford, where the dons cautioned against resorting to culture as an explanatory variable until you understood the politics, economics, and institutions it’s surrounded by. To begin thinking about why the US is such an outlier in social welfare policy, we might want to look at the work of international scholars (like Kieke Okma) who’ve done much to enhance our understanding of comparative health systems. We might also want to revisit the scorched earth politics of the 1990s.
June 17, 2008 at 8:41 am
Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Consumer Protection Law, Economic Analysis of Law
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Responses (5)
Jason Kilborn - June 17, 2008 at 10:02 am
I’ve struggled with this question, too, and I wonder if the media and primary school rhetoric drive the difference you observe. Perhaps its only because I come from a predominantly Protestant area of the North, but it seems to me that we’ve had drilled into us since early youth the idea that hard work is the path to success and, indeed, respectability. Those who fail to attain success probably didn’t work hard enough (or so the rhetoric would go). Our media seem to harp on the same message. The time I’ve spent in Europe didn’t seem to be full of this kind of rhetoric–quite the opposite. What do you think about this angle? [By the way, I read your posts in particular with great interest, Frank.]
Logical Extremes - June 17, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I wonder how Ganz and Hassett reconcile US youth sports participation with the skyrocketing youth obesity?
I can appreciate that there are some positive values taught in youtb team sports, but what really amazes me is the opportunity costs in wasted brainpower for the millions of hours spent watching professional sports (and most TV for that matter).
Frank - June 17, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Thanks to both JK and LE. I’ve had limited time in Europe but I’m glad to have that anecdotal confirmation of the statistics in Alesina et al. As for watching sports–I could not agree more. It is a deep and sad irony that excess time spent watching something can lead so directly to inability to actually do it.
A.J. Sutter - June 17, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Having looked at the Ganz and Hassett article, I don’t understand your nexus among
(A) high US school sports participation figures,
(B) high rates in the US of considering the unfortunate to be lazy, and
(C) the low rates in the US of campaign contributions you mention at the beginning of your post.
In particular, Ganz & Hassett say, “Athletes are also more active citizens, a 2006 study found. Economists Mark Hugo Lopez and Kimberlee Moore of the University of Maryland examined the effect of participation in sports on civic engagement. After controlling for factors such as age, educational attainment, and income, they found that athletes are 15 percent more likely to be registered to vote, 14 percent more likely to watch the news, and 8 percent more likely to feel comfortable speaking in public (and, for public speaking, the effect on females is twice as large).”
In your earlier blog post, you’re discussing resistance to redistribution. But that’s more related to point (B) than to point (C) above. Let’s assume that (A) (youth athletics) does lead to (B) (thinking the unfortunate are lazy). Ganz & Hassett’s characterization of the evidence suggests that any connection between (A) and campaign contributions should be the opposite: one might expect higher rates of campaign contributions among athletes. Moreover, campaign contributions can be made to foes of redistribution as well as to its advocates, so (B) and (C) seem separable issues. But you seem to suggest that (A) leads to (C), maybe because of (B). Am I missing something?
Disclaimer: this question is more directed to the logic of your argument, and shouldn’t be understood to suggest agreement with all or any of Ganz & Hassett’s substantive conclusions, some of which are just silly. E.g., “In other words, if you take two kids who have the same IQ and put one in a sports program, he will have a better future.” Aside from the dubious wisdom of equating “better future” with increased wages, and ignoring that the wage differential G&H mention is only $1,000 per year, what if, say, that kid doesn’t like sports?
anon - June 18, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I join AJ Sutter in not understanding the post.
The question posed is: what accounts for the difference between the US and many other countries when it comes to social welfare issues?
Then we’re told that US citizens contribute less to federal campaigns. Then we segue into youth sports. We’re not told if youth sports is the cause or the effect of the distinctive US attitudes but there’s a suggestion that youth sports is “driving” the difference. Then comes perhaps the least understandable segue: we get a sarcastic swipe at youth sports, and unsupported conclusions about the results of youth sports (e.g., less physics, and less attention to global warming). Then the post backs off from the proffered explanations and gestures toward other explanations.
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