A map of discontent: economic distress or public service deprivation?

Marco Fregoni and Marco Leonardi

Regional Studies, 2025, vol. 59, issue 1, 2577920

Abstract: Recent Italian parliamentary elections in Italy, similar to those in other countries, have highlighted growing populist sentiments. This study examines whether such political discontent can be attributed to economic distress or a deficiency in public services, using new data on tribunal and hospital closures, which we consider exogenous. Economic distress in a municipality is identified through the cost of job loss for residents working outside the municipality. The findings indicate that hospital closures are significantly linked to higher shares of populist votes at the municipality level during the 2008, 2013 and 2018 Italian elections, even after conditioning for the effects of economic shocks.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00343404.2025.2577920 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:regstd:v:59:y:2025:i:1:p:2577920

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRES20

DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2025.2577920

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Studies is currently edited by Ivan Turok

More articles in Regional Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().