“…Since a large literature on the relationship between democracy and economy focusses on GDP (e.g Acemoglu & Robinson, 2006;Przeworski, 2000), we use GDP per head as starting point. Our main interest, however, lies in growth, inflation, and unemployment, which vary substantially over time and have been proved influential in previous studies on SWD (Wagner et al, 2009) and right-wing extremism (Knigge, 1998;Brückner & Grüner, 2010). Furthermore, these variables are more responsive to economic policy in the short to medium run and are more likely to be targeted by policy makers.…”