15:30 - 17:45
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Shared by Panellists
Discussant/s:
Noam Lupu
Meeting Room H

Arndt Leininger, Max Schaub
Strategic alignment in times of crisis: Voting at the dawn of a global pandemic

Leonardo Baccini, Thomas Sattler
Austerity, Economic Vulnerability, and Populism

Costin Ciobanu
Blame and credit attribution for economic shocks

Jane Green, Lawrence McKay, Will Jennings, Gerry Stoker
Perceptions of Local Economic Decline: who perceives decline, and why does it matter?

Max Joosten
Exploring preference prioritization under austerity
Perceptions of Local Economic Decline: who perceives decline, and why does it matter?
Jane Green 1, Lawrence McKay 2, Will Jennings 2, Gerry Stoker 2
1 Nuffield College, Oxford
2 University of Southampton

Recent research shows that localised economic decline drives important political outcomes, in particular support for populism. Economic decline is measured using long-term administrative data to generate average treatment effects. In this paper, we ask: who can judge economic decline? Using new survey-based measures of localised economics together with a range of contextual data, we reveal the individual-level determinants of economic decline perceptions and the degree to which accuracy is determined by geographic units and types of economic measurement. Using these insights, we reveal the heterogeneous effects of economic decline perceptions on support for Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit). The implications of this paper are important for the conclusions we draw about the electoral importance of localised economic decline and inequalities, and the limitations and important scope conditions of those effects.