| By: |
Luisa Doerr;
Niklas Potrafke;
Felix Roesel |
| Abstract: |
We examine how populist governments influence political culture and economic
outcomes. Some Austrian communities are governed by far-right populist mayors,
directly elected by a majority of voters. We exploit close elections and find
that the electorate becomes more polarized under populist mayors. However,
polarization is not limited to politics. A major innovation of our study is
using data on team members of local football teams. Our results show that
diversity in local football teams decreases when populists are in power,
indicating that populists infiltrate the civic society. When it comes to
economic outcomes, migration and budget transparency decrease under populist
governments. |
| Keywords: |
populism, far-right politics, partisan politics, polarization, immigration, economic policy, local government, budget transparency |
| JEL: |
D72 P16 H72 Z18 |
| Date: |
2021 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9336&r= |