Arbeitspapier

Does the Winner Take It All? Redistributive Policies and Political Extremism

We show that regional heterogeneity of underlying fundamentals (e.g. economic history, geography, social capital) can lead to extreme voting in federations. When the outcome of federal policies – such as transfer schemes, market regulation or migration laws – depends on these fundamentals, the set of regions that wins or loses from a given policy is fixed. This gives voters a strategic incentive to distort the policy magnitude, by electing federal representatives that are extremely protective of regional interests. Interestingly, the benefits of selecting tough negotiators outweigh those of belonging to the ruling coalition. We test our predictions by looking at parties' performances at national and European Parliament elections from 1990 onwards, and find that strategic voting is indeed U-shaped: winning and losing member states vote more extremely than those in the middle. Our online survey provides further evidence.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 8214

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
National Budget, Deficit, and Debt: General
State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
Thema
political extremism
interregional redistribution
federalism
strategic delegation
bargaining
coalitions
EU elections
Euroscepticism
populism

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Daniele, Gianmarco
Piolatto, Amedeo
Sas, Willem
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
(wo)
Munich
(wann)
2020

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Daniele, Gianmarco
  • Piolatto, Amedeo
  • Sas, Willem
  • Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)

Entstanden

  • 2020

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