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How economic expectations shape preferences for national independence : Evidence from Greenland

Agneman, Gustav LU orcid (2022) In European Journal of Political Economy 72.
Abstract

This paper investigates how economic expectations shape voting intentions in a hypothetical independence referendum in Greenland, a self-governing region of the Kingdom of Denmark. I identify the causal effect of economic expectations by randomly exposing respondents to a prime informing on Greenland's current fiscal deficit. Respondents exposed to the information are 43% more likely to oppose independence, an effect I attribute to (a) worsened economic expectations and (b) greater political participation among pessimistic respondents. I further document that the impact of the prime depends on respondents’ ties to the political union. While information exposure substantially increases opposition to independence among voters with strong... (More)

This paper investigates how economic expectations shape voting intentions in a hypothetical independence referendum in Greenland, a self-governing region of the Kingdom of Denmark. I identify the causal effect of economic expectations by randomly exposing respondents to a prime informing on Greenland's current fiscal deficit. Respondents exposed to the information are 43% more likely to oppose independence, an effect I attribute to (a) worsened economic expectations and (b) greater political participation among pessimistic respondents. I further document that the impact of the prime depends on respondents’ ties to the political union. While information exposure substantially increases opposition to independence among voters with strong ties to Denmark, voting intentions are essentially unchanged for respondents with weak ties to Denmark. Still, instrumental motives shape preferences for a sufficiently large proportion of voters for the information prime to alter the outcome of the independence referendum.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Independence preferences, Survey experiment, Voter behavior
in
European Journal of Political Economy
volume
72
article number
102112
publisher
Tranfer Verlag, Regensburg, FRG
external identifiers
  • scopus:85115431170
ISSN
0176-2680
DOI
10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102112
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author
id
92edb1be-dca6-4f6e-a3a9-d8259a49c441
date added to LUP
2021-10-25 15:47:24
date last changed
2022-04-19 17:22:42
@article{92edb1be-dca6-4f6e-a3a9-d8259a49c441,
  abstract     = {{<p>This paper investigates how economic expectations shape voting intentions in a hypothetical independence referendum in Greenland, a self-governing region of the Kingdom of Denmark. I identify the causal effect of economic expectations by randomly exposing respondents to a prime informing on Greenland's current fiscal deficit. Respondents exposed to the information are 43% more likely to oppose independence, an effect I attribute to (a) worsened economic expectations and (b) greater political participation among pessimistic respondents. I further document that the impact of the prime depends on respondents’ ties to the political union. While information exposure substantially increases opposition to independence among voters with strong ties to Denmark, voting intentions are essentially unchanged for respondents with weak ties to Denmark. Still, instrumental motives shape preferences for a sufficiently large proportion of voters for the information prime to alter the outcome of the independence referendum.</p>}},
  author       = {{Agneman, Gustav}},
  issn         = {{0176-2680}},
  keywords     = {{Independence preferences; Survey experiment; Voter behavior}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Tranfer Verlag, Regensburg, FRG}},
  series       = {{European Journal of Political Economy}},
  title        = {{How economic expectations shape preferences for national independence : Evidence from Greenland}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102112}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102112}},
  volume       = {{72}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}