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Local economies and general elections: The influence of municipal and regional economic conditions on voting in Sweden 1985-2002

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  • Elinder, Mikael

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.

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  • Elinder, Mikael, 2010. "Local economies and general elections: The influence of municipal and regional economic conditions on voting in Sweden 1985-2002," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 279-292, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:26:y:2010:i:2:p:279-292
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    10. José Garcia Montalvo & Omiros Papaspiliopoulos & Timothée Stumpf-Fétizon, 2018. "Bayesian forecasting of electoral outcomes with new parties' competition," Economics Working Papers 1624, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Elections Voting Local economic conditions;

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

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