Economic Voting in Multi-Level States: A Regional-Level Analysis

This paper advances existing research on economic voting in multi-level states by adopting the region as the level of analysis. So far, studies that examine the link between institutional arrangements and economic voting rely primarily on individual-level surveys (CSES) taken at national elections (Anderson 2006). But such studies have not considered how economic voting differs between national and regional elections and how regional-level factors shape economic voting in both elections. Taking the differences in the reward/punishment of regional and central government incumbents as the main dependent variable, the paper examines the influence of the objective economic conditions in the region and in the rest of the country.  The baseline hypothesis is that the greater the divergence of economic conditions between the two levels, the higher the differences in support for the incumbent between the two levels. In addition, the paper examines the influence of three regional-level variables that could condition this relationship: i) the clarity of responsibility between regional and central government; ii) the presence of a distinct identity in the region; iii) the differences in the quality of government (QoG) between regional and central government. It is surmised that when the clarity of responsibility is high, there will be a stronger link between divergent economic conditions and differences in support for regional and central government incumbents. On the other hand, when the there is a distinct regional identity and the QoG is higher at the regional level, the relationship will be weaker.