[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecopol/v17y2005i2p265-296.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic Voting And Electoral Behavior: How Do Individual, Local, And National Factors Affect The Partisan Choice?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Leigh
Abstract
What impact do income and other demographic factors have on a voter's partisan choice? Using post‐election surveys of 14,000 voters in 10 Australian elections between 1966 and 2001, I explore the impact that individual, local, and national factors have on voters' decisions. In these 10 elections, the poor, foreign‐born, younger voters, voters born since 1950, men, and those who are unmarried are more likely to be left‐wing. Over the past 35 years, the partisan gap between men and women has closed, but the partisan gap has widened on three dimensions: between young and old; between rich and poor; and between native‐born and foreign‐born. At a neighborhood level, I find that, controlling for a respondent's own characteristics, and instrumenting for neighborhood characteristics, voters who live in richer neighborhoods are more likely to be right‐wing, while those in more ethnically diverse or unequal neighborhoods are more likely to be left‐wing. Controlling for incumbency, macroeconomic factors do not seem to affect partisan preferences – Australian voters apparently regard both major parties as equally capable of governing in booms and busts.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Leigh, 2005. "Economic Voting And Electoral Behavior: How Do Individual, Local, And National Factors Affect The Partisan Choice?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 265-296, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:17:y:2005:i:2:p:265-296
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.2005.00154.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2005.00154.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2005.00154.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa Cameron & Mark Crosby, 2000. "It's the Economy Stupid: Macroeconomics and Federal Elections in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 76(235), pages 354-364, December.
    2. Lena Edlund & Laila Haider & Rohini Pande, 2005. "Unmarried Parenthood and Redistributive Politics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 95-119, March.
    3. Cameron, L. & Crosby, M., 1999. "It's the Economy Stupid?," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 699, The University of Melbourne.
    4. Lena Edlund & Rohini Pande, 2002. "Why Have Women Become Left-Wing? The Political Gender Gap and the Decline in Marriage," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 917-961.
    5. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    6. Andrew Leigh, 2005. "Deriving Long‐Run Inequality Series from Tax Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(s1), pages 58-70, August.
    7. Dustmann, Christian & Preston, Ian, 2001. "Attitudes to Ethic Minorities, Ethnic Context and Location Decisions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 353-373, April.
    8. repec:bla:ecorec:v:76:y:2000:i:235:p:354-64 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Samuel Adams & Kingsley S. Agomor, 2015. "Democratic politics and voting behaviour in Ghana," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 365-381, December.
    2. Brunner, Eric & Ross, Stephen L. & Washington, Ebonya, 2008. "Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposal," Working Papers 50, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    3. Elinder, Mikael, 2010. "Local economies and general elections: The influence of municipal and regional economic conditions on voting in Sweden 1985-2002," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 279-292, June.
    4. Andrew Leigh, 2006. "How Do Unionists Vote? Estimating the Causal Impact of Union Membership on Voting Behaviour from 1966 to 2004," CEPR Discussion Papers 516, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    5. Chang Wen-Chun, 2008. "Toward Independence or Unification?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 124-153, January.
    6. Amy King & Andrew Leigh, 2010. "Bias at the Ballot Box? Testing Whether Candidates' Gender Affects Their Vote," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(2), pages 324-343, June.
    7. Artés, Joaquín, 2014. "The rain in Spain: Turnout and partisan voting in Spanish elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 126-141.
    8. Andrew Leigh, 2008. "Bringing home the bacon: an empirical analysis of the extent and effects of pork-barreling in Australian politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 279-299, October.
    9. Mohamed Amara & AbdelRahmen El Lahga, 2016. "Tunisian constituent assembly elections: how does spatial proximity matter?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 65-88, January.
    10. Eric Brunner & Stephen L. Ross & Ebonya Washington, 2013. "Does Less Income Mean Less Representation?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 53-76, May.
    11. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Monica Singhal, 2011. "Culture, Context, and the Taste for Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 157-179, February.
    12. Claus, Edda & Nguyen, Viet Hoang, 2018. "Consumptor economicus: How do consumers form expectations on economic variables?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 254-275.
    13. Mia, Rubel & Hasan, Mehedi & Joynal, Abedin Md, 2024. "Investigating Local Political Dynamics: A Case Study of the 2008 National Election in Bogura, Bangladesh," OSF Preprints vq647, Center for Open Science.
    14. Magnus Söderberg & Makoto Tanaka, 2012. "Spatial price homogeneity as a mechanism to reduce the threat of regulatory intervention in locally monopolistic sectors," Working Papers hal-00659458, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pande, Rohini, 2008. "Understanding Political Corruption in Low Income Countries," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 50, pages 3155-3184, Elsevier.
    2. Irma Clots-Figueras, 2012. "Are Female Leaders Good for Education? Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 212-244, January.
    3. Clots-Figueras, Irma, 2011. "Women in politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 664-690.
    4. Schild, Christopher-Johannes, 2013. "Do female mayors make a difference? Evidence from Bavaria," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2013, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    5. Hessami, Zohal & da Fonseca, Mariana Lopes, 2020. "Female political representation and substantive effects on policies: A literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Li-Ju Chen, 2021. "Female policymakers and educational expenditures: cross-country evidence," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 129-155, February.
    7. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Sonia Bhalotra & Brian Min & Yogesh Uppal, 2024. "Women legislators and economic performance," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 151-214, June.
    8. García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Konte, Maty, 2014. "Why Are Women Less Democratic Than Men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 104-119.
    9. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2004. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1409-1443, September.
    10. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    11. Grechyna, Daryna, 2023. "Parenthood and political engagement," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    12. Laura Barros & Manuel Santos Silva, 2019. "#EleNão: Economic crisis, the political gender gap, and the election of Bolsonaro," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 242, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Andrew Leigh, 2009. "Does the World Economy Swing National Elections?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(2), pages 163-181, April.
    14. Martin Halla & Mario Lackner & Johann Scharler, 2016. "Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 118(2), pages 292-323, April.
    15. Paolo Casini & Lore Vandewalle & Zaki Wahhaj, 2017. "Public Good Provision in Indian Rural Areas: The Returns to Collective Action by Microfinance Groups," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(1), pages 97-128.
    16. Alexandra Avdeenko & Thomas Siedler, 2017. "Intergenerational Correlations of Extreme Right‐Wing Party Preferences and Attitudes toward Immigration," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(3), pages 768-800, July.
    17. Astghik Mavisakalyan, 2014. "Women in cabinet and public health spending: evidence across countries," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 281-304, August.
    18. Sonia Bhalotra & Irma Clots-Figueras, 2014. "Health and the Political Agency of Women," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 164-197, May.
    19. Geishecker, Ingo & Siedler, Thomas, 2011. "Job loss fears and (extreme) party identification: First evidence from panel data," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 129, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    20. Ozdamar, Oznur, 2017. "Gendered economic policy making: The case of public expenditures on family allowances," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-28.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:17:y:2005:i:2:p:265-296. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0954-1985 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.