Wealth and the economic vote : How assets and liabilities shape election outcomes

Sammanfattning: This thesis contributes to the literature on economic voting, especially the subfield of the electoral impact in relation to wealth. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four independent research articles based on data from Sweden. Based on the first article, I find that the support for right-wing parties decreases in areas where voters are heavily invested in financial assets when there is a large amount of volatility in the world markets. Such patterns suggest that voters are responsive to financial risks. Through the second study, I illustrate that voters are sensitive to changes in monetary policies as well. More precisely, I show that voters tend to reward governments for decreases in interest rates. With the third study, I investigate the interplay of markets in a more direct way, estimating the effect of unemployment on voting in relation to household wealth. I find that the Swedish left-wing parties gain electoral advantage when the unemployment rates rise in less wealthy areas but that they lose support where voters are comparatively well-off. Finally, based on the fourth study, I investigate whether wealth has an impact on how voters behave with individual level data. The findings in this study suggest that wealthy citizens vote for right-wing parties to a grater extent. However, the estimated effect is small.