Who Voted for Brexit? A Comprehensive District-Level Analysis

Dennis Novy, Sascha Becker and Thiemo Fetzer

No 11954, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: On 23 June 2016, the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. We analyze vote and turnout shares across 380 local authority areas in the United Kingdom. We find that exposure to the EU in terms of immigration and trade provides relatively little explanatory power for the referendum vote. Instead, we find that fundamental characteristics of the voting population were key drivers of the Vote Leave share, in particular their education profiles, their historical dependence on manufacturing employment as well as low income and high unemployment. At the much finer level of wards within cities, we find that areas with deprivation in terms of education, income and employment were more likely to vote Leave. Our results indicate that a higher turnout of younger voters, who were more likely to vote Remain, would not have overturned the referendum result.

Keywords: Political economy; Voting; Referendum; Migration; Austerity; Globalisation; Uk; Scotland; Eu (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 N44 R23 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-eur, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (280)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Who voted for Brexit? A comprehensive district-level analysis (2017)
Working Paper: Who voted for Brexit? A comprehensive district-Level analysis (2017)
Working Paper: Who Voted for Brexit? A Comprehensive District-Level Analysis (2017)
Working Paper: Who Voted for Brexit? A Comprehensive District-Level Analysis (2016)
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