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Mass Emigration and Political Change: Evidence from Historical Swedish Elections

Strandberg, Aron LU (2018) NEKN01 20172
Department of Economics
Abstract (Swedish)
Migrants do not only affect the societies in which they arrive. When people leave in large numbers, their absence will also have indirect consequences for the societies from which they left. Between 1860 and 1930, 1.4 million Swedes emigrated abroad, most of them settling in the United States. In this essay I look at how this historic migration episode, in which a quarter of the population left the country, affected the political outcomes in Sweden.

I link emigration records, election data and population censuses for 2363 municipalities observed over 8 general elections between 1911 to 1928. I show that municipalities with more emigration saw larger relative gains for left-wing parties in subsequent elections.

Looking at migrant... (More)
Migrants do not only affect the societies in which they arrive. When people leave in large numbers, their absence will also have indirect consequences for the societies from which they left. Between 1860 and 1930, 1.4 million Swedes emigrated abroad, most of them settling in the United States. In this essay I look at how this historic migration episode, in which a quarter of the population left the country, affected the political outcomes in Sweden.

I link emigration records, election data and population censuses for 2363 municipalities observed over 8 general elections between 1911 to 1928. I show that municipalities with more emigration saw larger relative gains for left-wing parties in subsequent elections.

Looking at migrant selection, I find evidence that municipalities with more emigration turned relatively more collectivistic, lending some support to the hypothesis that part of the left-wing gain can be explained as a consequence of ideological selection of emigrants. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Strandberg, Aron LU
supervisor
organization
course
NEKN01 20172
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Emigration, Political Change, Individualism
language
English
id
8934606
date added to LUP
2018-02-14 18:41:41
date last changed
2018-02-26 13:45:18
@misc{8934606,
  abstract     = {{Migrants do not only affect the societies in which they arrive. When people leave in large numbers, their absence will also have indirect consequences for the societies from which they left. Between 1860 and 1930, 1.4 million Swedes emigrated abroad, most of them settling in the United States. In this essay I look at how this historic migration episode, in which a quarter of the population left the country, affected the political outcomes in Sweden.

I link emigration records, election data and population censuses for 2363 municipalities observed over 8 general elections between 1911 to 1928. I show that municipalities with more emigration saw larger relative gains for left-wing parties in subsequent elections.

Looking at migrant selection, I find evidence that municipalities with more emigration turned relatively more collectivistic, lending some support to the hypothesis that part of the left-wing gain can be explained as a consequence of ideological selection of emigrants.}},
  author       = {{Strandberg, Aron}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Mass Emigration and Political Change: Evidence from Historical Swedish Elections}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}