Local Economies and General Elections: The Influence of Municipal and Regional Economic Conditions on Voting in Sweden 1985–2002

Mikael Elinder

No 821, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: This paper presents a detailed analysis of voters’ responses to municipality and regional-level unemployment and economic growth, using panel data on 284 municipalities and 9 regions, covering Swedish general elections from 1982 to 2002. The preferred specification suggests that a reduction in regional unemployment by one percentage point is associated with an increase in the support for the national government by about 1.7 percentage points. The effect of growth, at the regional level, is substantial in size, but statistically insignificant. At the municipality level, unemployment has a smaller effect than at the regional level and growth has no effect on government support.

Keywords: Elections; Voting; Local Economic Conditions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 R11 R12 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2010-01-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-geo, nep-pol and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Forthcoming in European Journal of Political Economy.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Local economies and general elections: The influence of municipal and regional economic conditions on voting in Sweden 1985-2002 (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0821

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