Flooding the vote: Heterogeneous voting responses to a natural disaster in Germany

K. Peren Arin, Kevin Devereux, Joel Methorst and Marcel Thum

European Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 89, issue C

Abstract: We present the first evidence of voter-level responses to a climatic disaster — the catastrophic German flooding of 2021, which serves as a natural experiment. Data on previous voting history reveals non-monotonic treatment effects: flood exposure increased the likelihood of voting for the Green Party by four to five percentage points among previous non-Green voters, but decreased future Green voting for previous Green voters. Tracking migration also reveals heterogeneity. Movers-out of flood zones responded more strongly; classifying them in the control group – as geographic panels do – attenuates the treatment effect. Both factors rationalize past findings of null or small effects, emphasizing the importance of microdata.

Keywords: Natural disasters; Elections; Voting; Climate change; Green parties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 Q54 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:89:y:2025:i:c:s0176268025000540

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102694

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