Footnote:
In: EPSA 2013 Annual General Conference Paper 354
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments June 30, 2014 erstellt
Description:
This paper examines whether voters’ subjective forecasts of the economy and their assessments of their individual unemployment risk affect how they vote, or if their forecasts reflect, rather than cause, their partisan leanings. We employ a unique Danish dataset comprising panel surveys, a survey experiment, and detailed historical and contemporaneous administrative data on individuals. Using an instrumental variables approach, we employ randomly assigned survey treatments that exogenously influence forecasts of aggregate unemployment and show that these “sociotropic” forecasts for the aggregate economy have a causal effect on voting behavior. We relate the individuals’ forecasts of the aggregate unemployment rate to voter characteristics like gender, education, and past vote, as well as voters’ own expectations about their personal risk of unemployment. Important determinants of the latter include our very precisely measured personal histories of unemployment, home ownership, local and industry economic conditions, and other employment rather than political characteristics