Populism and Impatience

This study shows that supporters of right-wing populist parties in Germany and the United Kingdom tend to be less patient than supporters of other parties and thus more prone to favor immediate gratification over long-term outcomes. Our empirical analysis highlights that a direct effect of impatience on the support for right-wing populism remains even after controlling for life outcomes, such as income and education. We present a theoretical model to rationalize this finding, where highly impatient individuals are subject to binding borrowing constraints and therefore unable to reallocate the benefits of forward-looking policies to the present. For this reason, they tend to support myopic policies promoted by populist parties that focus on immediate outcomes. Extending our empirical analysis shows that the direct effect of impatience on the likelihood of preferring a right-wing populist party may indeed be driven by voters who are borrowing-constrained.