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Economic insecurity and political preferences

Walter Bossert, Andrew E. Clark, Conchita D'Ambrosio and Anthony Lepinteur


Economic insecurity has attracted growing attention, but there is no consensus as to its definition. We characterize a class of individual economic-insecurity measures based on the time profile of economic resources. We apply this economic-insecurity measure to political-preference data in the USA, UK, and Germany. Conditional on current economic resources, economic insecurity is associated with both greater political participation (support for a party or the intention to vote) and more support for conservative parties. In particular, economic insecurity predicts greater support for both Donald Trump before the 2016 US Presidential election and the UK leaving the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum


3 July 2023


Oxford Economic Papers 75(3) , pp.802-825, 2023


DOI: 10.1093/oep/gpac037

https://academic.oup.com/oep/article/75/3/802/6693580

This Journal article is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme, Labour programme.