The Effect of Local Economic Shocks on Local and National Elections

Juan Herreño, Matias Morales () and Mathieu Pedemonte

No 23-08, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Abstract: We study the reaction of voters to shifts in local economic conditions. Using the departure from the gold standard of US trading partners in 1931 and the US in 1933, we exploit heterogeneity in export destinations, creating local differences in expenditure-switching in US counties by isolating the aggregate effects of the monetary shocks using time fixed effects. We find significant changes in local voting behavior in response to both shocks, one originating abroad, and another domestically. The response to both shocks have similar magnitude. We argue that voters punished and rewarded incumbents regardless of the shocks’ origin, implying strong feedback from economic conditions to electoral outcomes.

Keywords: US Elections; Gold Standard; Economic Voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 E61 N42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2023-03-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his, nep-pol and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202308 Full Text (text/html)

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:fip:fedcwq:95894

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202308

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by 4D Library ().