Konferenzbeitrag

Inequality and Extremist Voting: Evidence from Germany

This paper studies the impact of economic inequality on political polarization. Using a unique dataset covering different measures of regional income inequality as well as federal and state election outcomes at the county level in Germany, we investigate whether inequality influences the share of votes for right-wing and left-wing extremist parties using instrumental variable estimation. Our results suggest that an increase in income inequality has a sizeable influence on the support for extremist parties. The poorer a county is compared to the national average, the higher is the share of votes both nationalist and leftist parties receive. Our findings thus indicate that the rise in economic inequality may be a threat to political stability.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2018: Digitale Wirtschaft - Session: Voting I ; No. F03-V1

Classification
Wirtschaft
Single Equation Models: Single Variables: Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Single Equation Models: Single Variables: Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Subject
Inequality
political polarization
extremist voting
Germany

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Dorn, Florian
Fuest, Clemens
Immel, Lea
Neumeier, Florian
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
(where)
Kiel, Hamburg
(when)
2018

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Konferenzbeitrag

Associated

  • Dorn, Florian
  • Fuest, Clemens
  • Immel, Lea
  • Neumeier, Florian
  • ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft

Time of origin

  • 2018

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