Populist voting and losers’ discontent: Does redistribution matter?

Giuseppe Albanese, Guglielmo Barone and Guido de Blasio

European Economic Review, 2022, vol. 141, issue C

Abstract: Economic roots of populism in Western countries point to the role of economic insecurity that plagues losers from recent large economic shocks. We show that fiscal redistribution matters by comparing Italian municipalities equally hit by the economic shocks leading to populism but, at the same time, very differently exposed to the generosity of the EU structural funds, because of their locations on the two opposite sides of the geographical border that determines eligibility. Estimates resulting from a spatial regression discontinuity design show that in 2013 general election larger EU financing caused a drop in populism of about 9% of the mean of the dependent variable.

Keywords: Populism; Voting; EU regional redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Working Paper: Populist Voting and Losers’ Discontent: Does Redistribution Matter? (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:141:y:2022:i:c:s0014292121002749

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2021.104000

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