Income shocks, political support and voting behaviour
利用英国过去25年数据，研究失业这一收入冲击对个人政治支持、投票行为和意见的长期影响，发现对执政党支持率有持续2-4个百分点的下降，但对边缘政党或脱欧态度影响有限。
We provide new evidence on the effects of economic shocks on political support, voting behaviour and political opinions over the last 25 years in the UK. We exploit a sudden, large and long-lasting shock in the form of job loss and trace out its impact on individual political outcomes for up to 10 years after the event. The availability of detailed information on individuals before and after the job loss event allows us to reweight a comparison group to closely mimic the job losers in terms of their observable characteristics, pre-existing political support and voting behaviour. We find consistent and long-lasting effects on support and votes for the incumbent party, and shorter-lived effects on political engagement. We find limited impact on the support for fringe or populist parties. In the context of Brexit, opposition to the EU was much higher amongst those who lost their jobs, but this was largely due to pre-existing differences which were not exacerbated by the job loss event itself. • Job loss causes a 2–4 percentage point reduction in support for the incumbent party. • Little evidence that job loss increases support for fringe parties. • Job loss has no significant effect on opposition to the EU. • Changes in support for the incumbent are persistent beyond a single electoral cycle.