The Dutch people and the euro: A structural equations analysis relating national identity and economic expectations to attitude towards the euro

National identity, macro and micro economic expectations affect the attitude toward the euro. In a study in The Netherlands, data were collected and relationships between the latent concepts were modelled with LISREL. In the best fitting model, national identity has a direct and an indirect effect on attitude, respectively, an unstructured and a structured effect. The indirect effect is mediated by macro and micro expectations. Macro expectations also have a direct and an indirect effect. The indirect effect is mediated by micro expectations. On one hand, macro expectations form a strong link between national identity and attitude. On the other hand, macro expectations have a strong direct effect on attitudes. The euro is mainly perceived and evaluated in a macro-economic perspective. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PsycINFO classification: 2229; 3920. JEL classification: D84; E52.