Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals

Eric J. Brunner (), Stephen Ross () and Ebonya Washington
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Ebonya Washington: Yale University

No 2008-18, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: There is a large literature demonstrating that positive economic conditions increase support for incumbent candidates, but little understanding of how economic conditions affect preferences for parties and for particulars of their platforms. We ask how exogenous shifts to the value of residents. human capital affect voting behavior in California neighborhoods. As predicted by economic theory, we find that positive economic shocks decrease support for redistributive policies. More notably, we find that conservative voting on a wide variety of ballot propositions--from crime to gambling to campaign finance--is increasing in economic well being.

Keywords: Voting; Employment; Taxes; Expenditures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-hpe, nep-pol and nep-ure
Date: 2008-06
Note: We are grateful to Alberto Alesina, Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat, David Autor, Rafael di Tella, Yan Chen, Rachel Croson, Dhammika Dharmapala, Erica Field, Alan Gerber, Timothy Guinnane, Elizabeth Hoffman, Gregory Huber, Lawrence Katz, Lawrence Kenny, Ulrike Malmendier, Sendhil Mullainathan, Antoinette Schoar and Ken Shotts and to seminar participants at the Brookings Institute, Clark University, Harvard University, MIT, University of Chicago, University of Connecticut, University of Kentucky and University of Pennsylvania for helpful comments.
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http://www.econ.uconn.edu/working/2008-18r.pdf Full text (revised version) (application/pdf)
http://www.econ.uconn.edu/working/2008-18.pdf Full text (original version) (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals (2008)
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