Tuesday Seminar – 17 November

Are citizens still receiving the treatment? A reassessment of previous findings on the effect of local context on the perception of the national economy

Alexandra Jabbour (Université de Montréal)

A growing number of studies investigate the role of local factors on individuals’ perceptions of the national economy. Some of those studies showed that individuals use local economic conditions to infer the state of the national economy. What remains unknown is the extent to which individual mobility mitigates the impact of the local economic conditions on the perception of the national economy. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that when considering the impact of the local economic context on the perception of the national economy, it is necessary to take into account the mobility between the two places where citizens tend to spend most of their time: home and work. To do so, I use large administrative data from the US census bureau on the unemployment rate, information on where workers live and work and surveys measuring the perception of the national economy. By means of this study, I aim to contribute to the literature on local politics and economic voting by giving a more complete picture of the context in which an individual lives and the effect of this specific environment on economic perception.

Contact Semih Çakır if you would like to participate in the seminar.

This content has been updated on 16 November 2020 at 10 h 21 min.