IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/308099.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation surprises and election outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Federle, Jonathan-Julian
  • Mohr, Cathrin
  • Schularick, Moritz

Abstract

We study the political consequences of inflation surprises, focusing on votes for extremist and populist parties in 365 elections in 18 advanced economies since 1948. Inflation surprises are regularly followed by a substantial increase in vote shares of extremist, anti-system, and populist parties. An inflation surprise of 10 percentage points leads to a 15% increase in their vote share, comparable to the increase typically seen after financial crises. We show that the change in voting behavior is particularly pronounced when real wages decline, and less evident when real wages are not affected. Our paper points to considerable political after-effects of unexpected inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Federle, Jonathan-Julian & Mohr, Cathrin & Schularick, Moritz, 2024. "Inflation surprises and election outcomes," Kiel Working Papers 2278, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:308099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/308099/1/1913732703.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.
    2. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    3. Nannestad, Peter & Paldam, Martin, 1994. "The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 79(3-4), pages 213-245, June.
    4. Klaus Adam & Junyi Zhu, 2016. "Price-Level Changes And The Redistribution Of Nominal Wealth Across The Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 871-906, August.
    5. Funke, Manuel & Schularick, Moritz & Trebesch, Christoph, 2016. "Going to extremes: Politics after financial crises, 1870–2014," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 227-260.
    6. Döring, Holger & Regel, Sven, 2019. "Party Facts: A database of political parties worldwide," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 97-109.
    7. Cohn, Jonathan B. & Liu, Zack & Wardlaw, Malcolm I., 2022. "Count (and count-like) data in finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 529-551.
    8. Rooduijn, Matthijs & Pirro, Andrea L. P. & Halikiopoulou, Daphne & Froio, Caterina & Van Kessel, Stijn & De Lange, Sarah L. & Mudde, Cas & Taggart, Paul, 2024. "The PopuList: A Database of Populist, Far-Left, and Far-Right Parties Using Expert-Informed Qualitative Comparative Classification (EiQCC)," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 969-978, July.
    9. Pallotti, Filippo & Paz-Pardo, Gonzalo & Slacalek, Jiri & Tristani, Oreste & Violante, Giovanni L., 2024. "Who bears the costs of inflation? Euro area households and the 2021–2023 shock," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(S).
    10. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    11. Filippo Pallotti & Gonzalo Paz-Pardo & Jiri Slacalek & Oreste Tristani & Giovanni L. Violante, 2024. "Who Bears the Costs of Inflation? Euro Area Households and the 2021–2023 Shock," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation in the COVID Era and Beyond, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    2. Maximilian Grimm & Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2023. "Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability," Working Paper Series 2023-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    3. Gabriel, Ricardo Duque & Klein, Mathias & Pessoa, Sofia, 2022. "The Political Costs of Austerity," Working Paper Series 418, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    4. Rodolfo G. Campos & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Galo Nuño & Peter Paz, 2024. "Navigating by Falling Stars: Monetary Policy with Fiscally Driven Natural Rates," NBER Working Papers 32219, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gong Cheng & Javier Diaz-Cassou & Aitor Erce, 2019. "The macroeconomic effects of official debt restructuring: evidence from the Paris Club," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 344-363.
    6. Ben Zeev, Nadav, 2017. "Capital controls as shock absorbers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 43-67.
    7. Coman, Andra & Lloyd, Simon P., 2022. "In the face of spillovers: Prudential policies in emerging economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Asger Lau Andersen & Niels Johannesen & Mia Jørgensen & José-Luis Peydró, 2020. "Monetary policy and inequality," Economics Working Papers 1761, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2021.
    9. Huseyin Gulen & Mihai Ion & Candace E Jens & Stefano Rossi, 2024. "Credit Cycles, Expectations, and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(11), pages 3335-3385.
    10. Afonso, António & Jalles, João Tovar, 2019. "The Fiscal consequences of deflation: Evidence from the Golden Age of Globalization," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 129-147.
    11. Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor & Felix Ward, 2019. "Global Financial Cycles and Risk Premiums," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 67(1), pages 109-150, March.
    12. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2018:i:4:p:50000000000853 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Schnabl Gunther & Müller Sebastian, 2019. "The Brexit as a Forerunner: Monetary Policy, Economic Order and Divergence Forces in the European Union," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-18, December.
    14. Atsushi Inoue & `Oscar Jord`a & Guido M. Kuersteiner, 2023. "Inference for Local Projections," Papers 2306.03073, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    15. Eric S. M. Protzer, 2019. "Social Mobility Explains Populism, Not Inequality or Culture," Growth Lab Working Papers 146, Harvard's Growth Lab.
    16. Gong Cheng & Javier Diaz-Cassou & Aitor Erce, 2017. "From Debt Collection to Relief Provision: 60 Years of Official Debt Restructurings through the Paris Club," Working Papers 20, European Stability Mechanism.
    17. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon Hanson & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3139-3183, October.
    18. Oliver Hülsewig & Horst Rottmann, 2022. "Euro Area Periphery Countries' Fiscal Policy and Monetary Policy Surprises," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(3), pages 544-568, June.
    19. Dias, Daniel A. & Duarte, João B., 2015. "Monetary Policy and Homeownership: Empirical Evidence, Theory, and Policy Implications," MPRA Paper 112252, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Mar 2021.
    20. O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2019. "Economic History and Contemporary Challenges to Globalization," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 356-382, June.
    21. Ofori, Isaac K. & Freytag, Andreas & Asongu, Simplice A., 2024. "Economic globalisation and Africa's quest for greener and more inclusive growth: The missing link," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation; Economic Voting; Extremism; Populism; Radicalization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:308099. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.