Paper #406

Title:

Catalan government popularity. An example of economic effects on sub-national government support

Authors:

Aida Díaz and Clara Riba

Date:

June 1999

Abstract:

The aim of this essay is to deal with economic voting in contexts of multilevel governance and to be a contribution to the debate on attribution of responsibilities in popularity functions literature. We use aggregate and individual data from Catalonia in order to analyse the relation between the state of the economy and the support for a sub-state government. The empirical analysis shows that the responsibility hypothesis works in regional governments without explicit macroeconomic competencies. We have also considered the evaluations of government performance on certain specific policies in order to clarify and determine the factors that drive Catalan government support. The article considers the implications of the findings for future attempts to model party support in a context of the European Union.

Keywords:

Economic vote, popularity functions, attribution of responsabilities, grievance asymmetry

JEL codes:

D72

Area of Research:

Labour, Public, Development and Health Economics

Published in:

Dorussen, H. & Taylor, M (eds) Economic Voting, Routledge, London, pp. 173-199, 2002
With the title:
Economic Voting in Sub-national Government. Catalonian Evidence

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