Local labour market conditions and electoral behaviour: an instrumental variable approach from Italy

Daniel Mele () and Alessandro Pietropaoli ()
Additional contact information
Daniel Mele: Bank of Italy
Alessandro Pietropaoli: Bank of Italy

No 1495, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: What is the causal impact of local employment dynamics on electoral behaviour? We combine Italian labour market area-level data for four national elections (2008, 2013, 2018 and 2022) with a shift-share IV estimation design to identify how local labour market conditions, captured by changes in the employment rate, affect voter participation and incumbent support. Our baseline estimates show that a 1 p.p. drop in the employment rate yields a significant 0.76 p.p. increase in turnout and a 0.80 p.p. decline in incumbent vote share. Further analyses reveal crucial nuances. First, exploring mediation, we find that higher turnout in response to worsening labour market conditions accounts for roughly one-quarter of the total negative impact on incumbent support via a participation channel. Second, the effects appear to be driven entirely by adverse conditions: we find strong electoral reactions in areas actually experiencing employment declines, but no significant response where conditions improve, consistent with a protest voting framework. Third, while regional-national partisan alignment slightly moderates effect magnitudes, national accountability for economic performance largely dominates the local electoral reaction.

Keywords: economic voting; Italian elections; local labour markets; electoral turnout; incumbent support; shift-share IV; participation channel; protest voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 J31 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-dis ... 495/en_tema_1495.pdf (application/pdf)

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:bdi:wptemi:td_1495_25

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().