The Geographies of Economic Voting in Presidential and Congressional Elections

Abstract

We investigate this question by examining how changing economic conditions shape voting behavior at various geographic levels. Recent research has trended in the opposite direction: exploring nuanced questions with increasingly sophisticated methodologies. In contrast, we explore a basic-but nonetheless critical-issue in the economic voting literature. While researchers have studied the effect of national conditions JORDAN M.

Anti-austerity voting in an era of economic crisis: Regional evidence from the 2015 referendum in Greece

“…general impression of the strengths and weaknesses of the regional economies) and indirect observation and experience (views and opinions of others, conversations, local media) (Pattie et al., 2015). Although the role of ‘intermediate’ geographies on economic voting has been long recognised (Kramer, 1983), the literature is scarce leading to a ‘spatial gap’ that can be explained by, at least, three factors (Ragusa and Tarpey, 2016): (1) the field has been dominated by political scientists and economists, (2) the economic voting literature has focused largely on ‘valence’ theories which have minimised other questions and (3) this kind of analysis requires data at sub-national level, usually more difficult to be obtained.…”

“…The paper contributes in several ways. First, the paper contributes to an under-researched area and a largely ignored topic, especially by regional scientists and geographers; as Ragusa and Tarpey (2016) have put it, the so-called geographies of economic voting have received little attention and are far from settled. The results of the study highlight the need for a closer integration between political and economic science, and regional science and spatial econometrics.…”

Policy feedback via economic behavior: A model and experimental analysis of consumption behavior

“…Path I illustrates that economic behavior in the mass public not only has direct effects on policy, but it also has effects on electoral behavior and election outcomes. It is well established in the literature that economic conditions and behavior influence political participation and vote choice (e.g., Lewis‐Beck & Paldam, 2000; Ragusa & Tarpey, 2016; Singer & Carlin, 2013). To the extent that a policy influences consumption behavior, opportunities emerge for that policy to have economic feeds and political (electoral) backs.…”

The economic geography of European Union’s discontent: Lessons from Greece

“…Although not new, the research on the geography of voting is limited because political scientists and economists, rather than regional scientists and geographers, have dominated the literature (Ragusa and Tarpey, 2016). Moreover, such an endeavour requires data that are typically difficult to obtain, especially at a low level of spatial aggregation.…”