Import Shocks and Voting Behavior in Europe Revisited
Annika Backes, Steffen Müller
European Journal of Political Economy,
June
2024
Abstract
We provide first evidence for the long-run causal impact that Chinese imports to European regions had on voting outcomes and revisit earlier estimates of the short-run impact for a methodological reason. The fringes of the political spectrum gained ground many years after the China shock plateaued and, unlike an earlier study by Colantone and Stanig (2018b), we do not find any robust evidence for a short-run effect on far-right votes. Instead, far-left and populist parties gained in the short run. We identify persistent long-run effects of import shocks on voting. These effects are biased towards populism and, to a lesser extent, to the far-right.
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23.04.2024 • 13/2024
Chinese mass imports strengthen extreme parties
Globalisation has led to an increase in votes for the political fringes in Europe. A study by the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) is the first to show the long-term consequences of increased Chinese imports in European regions: Far-right and populist parties in particular have benefited from the so-called China shock in national elections.
Steffen Müller
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Import Shocks and Voting Behavior in Europe Revisited
Annika Backes, Steffen Müller
Abstract
We provide first evidence for the long-run causal impact that Chinese imports to European regions had on voting outcomes and revisit earlier estimates of the short-run impact for a methodological reason. The fringes of the political spectrum gained ground many years after the China shock plateaued and, unlike an earlier study by Colantone and Stanig (2018b), we do not find any robust evidence for a short-run effect on far-right votes. Instead, far-left and populist parties gained in the short run. We identify persistent long-run effects of import shocks on voting. These effects are biased towards populism and, to a lesser extent, to the far-right.
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Herding Behavior and Systemic Risk in Global Stock Markets
Iftekhar Hasan, Radu Tunaru, Davide Vioto
Journal of Empirical Finance,
September
2023
Abstract
This paper provides new evidence of herding due to non- and fundamental information in global equity markets. Using quantile regressions applied to daily data for 33 countries, we investigate herding during the Eurozone crisis, China’s market crash in 2015–2016, in the aftermath of the Brexit vote and during the Covid-19 Pandemic. We find significant evidence of herding driven by non-fundamental information in case of negative tail market conditions for most countries. This study also investigates the relationship between herding and systemic risk, suggesting that herding due to fundamentals increases when systemic risk increases more than when driven by non-fundamentals. Granger causality tests and Johansen’s vector error-correction model provide solid empirical evidence of a strong interrelationship between herding and systemic risk, entailing that herding behavior may be an ex-ante aspect of systemic risk, with a more relevant role played by herding based on fundamental information in increasing systemic risk.
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Political Cycles in Bank Lending to the Government
Michael Koetter, Alexander Popov
Review of Financial Studies,
No. 6,
2021
Abstract
We study how political party turnover after German state elections affects banks’ lending to the regional government. We find that between 1992 and 2018, party turnover at the state level leads to a sharp and substantial increase in lending by local savings banks to their home-state government. This effect is accompanied by an equivalent reduction in private lending. A statistical association between political party turnover and government lending is absent for comparable cooperative banks that exhibit a similar regional organization and business model. Our results suggest that political frictions may interfere with government-owned banks’ local development objectives.
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Names and Behavior in a War
Štěpán Jurajda, Dejan Kovač
Journal of Population Economics,
No. 1,
2021
Abstract
We implement a novel empirical strategy for measuring and studying a strong form of nationalism—the willingness to fight and die in a war for national independence—using name choices corresponding to a previous war leader. Based on data on almost half a million soldiers, we first show that having been given a first name that is synonymous with the leader(s) of the Croatian state during World War II predicts volunteering for service in the 1991–1995 Croatian war of independence and dying during the conflict. Next, we use the universe of Croatian birth certificates and the information about nationalism conveyed by first names to suggests that in ex-Yugoslav Croatia, nationalism rose continuously starting in the 1970s and that its rise was curbed in areas where concentration camps were located during WWII. Our evidence on intergenerational transmission of nationalism is consistent with nationalist fathers purposefully reflecting the trade-off between within-family and society-wide transmission channels of political values. We also link the nationalist values we proxy using first name choices to right-wing voting behavior in 2015, 20 years after the war.
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Einflüsse des Lebensumfelds auf politische Einstellungen und Wahlverhalten - Eine vergleichende Analyse der Landtagswahlen 2019 in drei ostdeutschen Bundesländern
Matthias Brachert, Everhard Holtmann, Tobias Jaeck
Empirische Sozialforschung 12. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin,
2020
Abstract
Die vorliegende Studie analysiert die Landtagswahlen 2019 in den Bundesländern Brandenburg, Sachsen und Thüringen und testet die These eines »doppelten Transformationsschocks« für die ostdeutschen Länder auf der Kreisstufe. Die These besagt, dass in »Schockregionen«, die bestimmte prekäre Strukturmerkmale aufweisen, die Entfremdung von der Demokratie höher und das Protestwahlverhalten stärker ausgeprägt sind als in strukturell besser aufgestellten »Gewinnerregionen«. Die Autoren weisen in einer zweistufigen Analyse nahräumliche Kontexteffekte auf politische Einstellungen und auf das Wahlverhalten nach. Generell lockern traditionelle Parteibindungen auf und Präferenzen für Protest und Themenparteien (Zuwanderung, nationale Identität, Klimawandel) werden zunehmend stabiler. Daneben gibt es im regionalen Feld eine besondere Nebenströmung, welche jene Menschen mitnimmt, die ihre politische Weltsicht und ihr Wahlverhalten auch an den Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen des näheren Umfelds ausrichten.
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Regional Banking Instability and FOMC Voting
Stefan Eichler, Tom Lähner, Felix Noth
Journal of Banking and Finance,
2018
Abstract
This study analyzes if regionally affiliated Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members take their districts’ regional banking sector instability into account when they vote. Considering the period 1979–2010, we find that a deterioration in a district's bank health increases the probability that this district's representative in the FOMC votes to ease interest rates. According to member-specific characteristics, the effect of regional banking sector instability on FOMC voting behavior is most pronounced for Bank presidents (as opposed to Governors) and FOMC members who have career backgrounds in the financial industry or who represent a district with a large banking sector.
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Career Experience, Political Effects, and Voting Behavior in the Riksbank’s Monetary Policy Committee
Stefan Eichler, Tom Lähner
Economics Letters,
June
2017
Abstract
We find that career experience shapes the voting behavior of the Riksbank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members. Members with a career in the Riksbank and the government prefer higher rates. During a legislation with a center-right (center-left) party administration, MPC members with a career background in the government favor higher (lower) interest rates. Highlights: • The determinants of voting behavior in the Swedish Riksbank are considered. • Voting is analyzed with random effects ordered logit models for 1999–2013. • Interplay of career experience and political factors shapes voting behavior. • Government or Riksbank background leads to higher interest rate votes. • Partisan voting behavior is detected for members with government background.
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Regional Banking Instability and FOMC Voting
Stefan Eichler, Tom Lähner, Felix Noth
Abstract
This study analyzes if regionally affiliated Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members take their districts’ regional banking sector instability into account when they vote. Considering the period from 1978 to 2010, we find that a deterioration in a district’s bank health increases the probability that this district’s representative in the FOMC votes to ease interest rates. According to member-specific characteristics, the effect of regional banking sector instability on FOMC voting behavior is most pronounced for Bank presidents (as opposed to governors) and FOMC members who have career backgrounds in the financial industry or who represent a district with a large banking sector.
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