IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_8214.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the Winner Take It All? Redistributive Policies and Political Extremism

Author

Listed:
  • Gianmarco Daniele
  • Amedeo Piolatto
  • Willem Sas

Abstract

We show that regional heterogeneity of underlying fundamentals (e.g. economic history, geography, social capital) can lead to extreme voting in federations. When the outcome of federal policies – such as transfer schemes, market regulation or migration laws – depends on these fundamentals, the set of regions that wins or loses from a given policy is fixed. This gives voters a strategic incentive to distort the policy magnitude, by electing federal representatives that are extremely protective of regional interests. Interestingly, the benefits of selecting tough negotiators outweigh those of belonging to the ruling coalition. We test our predictions by looking at parties’ performances at national and European Parliament elections from 1990 onwards, and find that strategic voting is indeed U-shaped: winning and losing member states vote more extremely than those in the middle. Our online survey provides further evidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Gianmarco Daniele & Amedeo Piolatto & Willem Sas, 2020. "Does the Winner Take It All? Redistributive Policies and Political Extremism," CESifo Working Paper Series 8214, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8214.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    2. Volden, Craig & Wiseman, Alan E., 2007. "Bargaining in Legislatures over Particularistic and Collective Goods," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 79-92, February.
    3. Carozzi, Felipe & Repetto, Luca, 2016. "Sending the pork home: Birth town bias in transfers to Italian municipalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 42-52.
    4. Yann Algan & Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou & Evgenia Passari, 2017. "The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism," Post-Print hal-02381560, HAL.
    5. Sergei Guriev, 2018. "Economic Drivers of Populism," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 200-203, May.
    6. Yann Algan & Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou & Evgenia Passari, 2017. "The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(2 (Fall)), pages 309-400.
    7. Buisseret, Peter & Bernhardt, Dan, 2018. "Reelection and Renegotiation: International Agreements in the Shadow of the Polls," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1016-1035, November.
    8. Anke S. Kessler & Nico A. Hansen & Christian Lessmann, 2011. "Interregional Redistribution and Mobility in Federations: A Positive Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(4), pages 1345-1378.
    9. Diermeier, Daniel & Eraslan, Hülya & Merlo, Antonio, 2007. "Bicameralism and Government Formation," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 2(3), pages 227-252, August.
    10. Thiemo Fetzer, 2019. "Did Austerity Cause Brexit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3849-3886, November.
    11. Fiva, Jon H. & Halse, Askill H., 2016. "Local favoritism in at-large proportional representation systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 15-26.
    12. Gans, Joshua S. & Smart, Michael, 1996. "Majority voting with single-crossing preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 219-237, February.
    13. Gancia, Gino & Ponzetto, Giacomo A.M. & Ventura, Jaume, 2020. "A theory of economic unions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 107-127.
    14. Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2019. "The Surge of Economic Nationalism in Western Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 128-151, Fall.
    15. Kei Kawai & Yasutora Watanabe, 2013. "Inferring Strategic Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 624-662, April.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2i9jel1usb85nr2j7tejsaldfu is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Decentralization and political institutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2261-2290, December.
    18. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.
    19. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.
    20. Brian Knight, 2008. "Legislative Representation, Bargaining Power and the Distribution of Federal Funds: Evidence from the US Congress," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1785-1803, October.
    21. Edo, Anthony & Giesing, Yvonne & Öztunc, Jonathan & Poutvaara, Panu, 2019. "Immigration and electoral support for the far-left and the far-right," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 99-143.
    22. Jenny Simon & Justin Mattias Valasek, 2013. "Centralized Fiscal Spending by Supranational Unions," CESifo Working Paper Series 4321, CESifo.
    23. Luelfesmann, Christoph & Kessler, Anke & Myers, Gordon M., 2015. "The architecture of federations: Constitutions, bargaining, and moral hazard," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 18-29.
    24. Chari, V V & Jones, Larry E & Marimon, Ramon, 1997. "The Economics of Split-Ticket Voting in Representative Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 957-976, December.
    25. Bafumi, Joseph & Herron, Michael C., 2010. "Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 519-542, August.
    26. Luigi Guiso & Helios Herrera & Massimo Morelli & Tommaso Sonno, 2017. "Demand and Supply of Populism," EIEF Working Papers Series 1703, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Feb 2017.
    27. Ricardo Alonso & Wouter Dessein & Niko Matouschek, 2008. "When Does Coordination Require Centralization?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 145-179, March.
    28. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias K., 2018. "Political Competition in Legislative Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 809-825, November.
    29. Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2018. "The Trade Origins of Economic Nationalism: Import Competition and Voting Behavior in Western Europe," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(4), pages 936-953, October.
    30. Anke S. Kessler, 2014. "Communication in Federal Politics: Universalism, Policy Uniformity, and the Optimal Allocation of Fiscal Authority," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(4), pages 766-805.
    31. Loeper, Antoine, 2017. "Cross-border externalities and cooperation among representative democracies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 180-208.
    32. Piolatto, Amedeo, 2011. "Plurality versus proportional electoral rule: Which is most representative of voters?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 311-327, June.
    33. Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Roberto Perotti & Massimo Rostagno, 2002. "Electoral Systems and Public Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 609-657.
    34. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1divsbu8t888r9vqektjbmlqoa is not listed on IDEAS
    35. Christiansen, Nels, 2013. "Strategic delegation in a legislative bargaining model with pork and public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 217-229.
    36. Guiso, Luigi & Herrera, Helios & Morelli, Massimo & Sonno, Tommaso, 2018. "Populism: Demand and Supply," CEPR Discussion Papers 11871, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    37. Cristóbal Kaltwasser, 2018. "Studying the (Economic) Consequences of Populism," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 204-207, May.
    38. Konstantinos Matakos & Orestis Troumpounis & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2016. "Electoral Rule Disproportionality and Platform Polarization," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(4), pages 1026-1043, October.
    39. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 2003. "Centralized versus decentralized provision of local public goods: a political economy approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2611-2637, December.
    40. Ricardo Alonso & Wouter Dessein & Niko Matouschek, 2008. "When Does Coordination Require Centralization? Corrigendum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 1195-1196, June.
    41. T. Renee Bowen & Ying Chen & H?lya Eraslan, 2014. "Mandatory versus Discretionary Spending: The Status Quo Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2941-2974, October.
    42. Bård Harstad, 2007. "Harmonization and Side Payments in Political Cooperation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 871-889, June.
    43. Leonardo Bursztyn & Georgy Egorov & Stefano Fiorin, 2017. "From Extreme to Mainstream: How Social Norms Unravel," NBER Working Papers 23415, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    44. Daniel Diermeier & Hulya Eraslan & Antonio Merlo, 2002. "Bicameralism and Government Formation, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 07-010, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Feb 2007.
    45. Jenny Simon & Justin Mattias Valasek, 2017. "Centralized Fiscal Spending by Supranational Unions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(333), pages 78-103, January.
    46. Coate, Stephen & Milton, Ross T., 2019. "Optimal fiscal limits with overrides," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 76-92.
    47. Laurent Bouton & Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2020. "The Political Economy of Debt and Entitlements," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2568-2599.
    48. Andrew Beath & Fotini Christia & Georgy Egorov & Ruben Enikolopov, 2016. "Electoral Rules and Political Selection: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 932-968.
    49. John William Hatfield & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2012. "A Political Economy Theory Of Partial Decentralization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 605-633, May.
    50. Brian Knight, 2002. "Endogenous Federal Grants and Crowd-out of State Government Spending: Theory and Evidence from the Federal Highway Aid Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 71-92, March.
    51. Yotam Margalit, 2019. "Economic Insecurity and the Causes of Populism, Reconsidered," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 152-170, Fall.
    52. Jonathan A. Rodden & Gunnar S. Eskeland (ed.), 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and the Challenge of Hard Budget Constraints," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262182297, April.
    53. Harstad, Bård, 2010. "Strategic delegation and voting rules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 102-113, February.
    54. Bol, Damien & Matakos, Konstantinos & Troumpounis, Orestis & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2019. "Electoral rules, strategic entry and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    55. Cantoni, Davide & Hagemeister, Felix & Westcott, Mark, 2019. "Persistence and Activation of Right-Wing Political Ideology," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 143, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    56. Nolan McCarty & Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 2009. "Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 666-680, July.
    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. Diego Martínez‐López, 2022. "Subnational borrowing and bailouts: When the federal government looks at the votes (differently) and its borrowing matters," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(3), pages 609-633, June.
    2. Pieroni, Luca & Roig, Melcior Rosselló & Salmasi, Luca, 2023. "Italy: Immigration and the evolution of populism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Fanfani, Bernardo, 2022. "Tastes for discrimination in monopsonistic labour markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    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. Gianmarco Daniele & Amedeo Piolatto & Willem Sas, 2018. "Who Sent You? Strategic Voting, Transfers and Bailouts in a Federation," Working Papers. Serie AD 2018-05, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    2. Daniele, Gianmarco & Piolatto, Amedeo & Sas, Willem, 2024. "Does the winner take it all? Federal policies and political extremism," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    3. Albanese, Giuseppe & Barone, Guglielmo & de Blasio, Guido, 2022. "Populist voting and losers’ discontent: Does redistribution matter?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Eugenio Levi & Isabelle Sin & Steven Stillman, 2021. "Understanding the Origins of Populist Political Parties and the Role of External Shocks," Working Papers 21_09, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    5. Eugenio Levi & Fabrizio Patriarca, 2020. "An exploratory study of populism: the municipality-level predictors of electoral outcomes in Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 833-875, October.
    6. Giray Gozgor, 2022. "The role of economic uncertainty in the rise of EU populism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 229-246, January.
    7. Pan, Wei-Fong, 2023. "Household debt in the times of populism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 202-215.
    8. Győző Gyöngyösi & Emil Verner, 2022. "Financial Crisis, Creditor‐Debtor Conflict, and Populism," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 2471-2523, August.
    9. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Neil Lee & Cornelius Lipp, 2021. "Golfing with Trump. Social capital, decline, inequality, and the rise of populism in the US," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(3), pages 457-481.
    10. Barone, Guglielmo & Kreuter, Helena, 2021. "Low-wage import competition and populist backlash: The case of Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Luigi Guiso & Massimo Morelli & Tommaso Sonno & Helios Herrera, 2021. "The Financial Drivers of Populism in Europe," EIEF Working Papers Series 2112, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Sep 2021.
    12. Nikitas Konstantinidis & Konstantinos Matakos & Hande Mutlu-Eren, 2019. "“Take back control”? The effects of supranational integration on party-system polarization," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 297-333, June.
    13. Snower, Dennis J. & Bosworth, Steven J., 2021. "Economic, social and political fragmentation: Linking knowledge-biased growth, identity, populism and protectionism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Javier Terrero-Dávila & Neil Lee, 2023. "Left-behind versus unequal places: interpersonal inequality, economic decline and the rise of populism in the USA and Europe," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(5), pages 951-977.
    15. Pan, Wei-Fong, 2023. "The effect of populism on high-skilled migration: Evidence from inventors," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    16. Fornaro, Paolo & Kaihovaara, Antti, 2020. "Microdynamics, granularity and populism: The Finnish case," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    18. Andres Rodriguez-Pose & Javier Terrero-Davila & Neil Lee, 2023. "Left-behind vs. unequal places: interpersonal inequality, economic decline, and the rise of populism in the US and Europe," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2306, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Mar 2023.
    19. 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.
    20. D’Ambrosio, Anna & Leombruni, Roberto & Razzolini, Tiziano, 2021. ""Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side". Electoral Results and the Workplace Safety of Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 14322, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    political extremism; interregional redistribution; federalism; strategic delegation; bargaining; coalitions; EU elections; Euroscepticism; populism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_8214. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.