Rode, M. (Martin)
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- The price of populism: financial market outcomes of populist electoral success(Elsevier, 2021) Stöckl, S. (Sebastian); Rode, M. (Martin)Following financial research on the importance of public policy for asset prices, we hypothesize that the success of populist movements impacts risk assessments in financial markets. Building a novel dataset, findings show for a sample of Western democracies that the success of populist parties has a direct impact on volatility in major domestic market indexes, measured from option prices spanning national elections. Despite its anti-capitalist rhetoric, the political insecurity generated by populist movements on the far left only partially translates into financial insecurity in the context of institutionalized democracies. In turn, we find the electoral success of right-wing populists to reduce risk assessments, which could be driven by its frequent association with rent-seeking and big business.
- Will the real populists please stand up? A machine learning index of party populism(Elsevier, 2024) Rodríguez-Carreño, I. (Ignacio); Celico, A. (Andrea); Rode, M. (Martin)The existing literature on populism has seen numerous attempts to empirically quantify this somewhat ambiguous concept. Despite notable advances, continuous measures of populism with a clear theoretical background and a considerable coverage are still hard to come by. This paper proposes a novel approach to measuring party populism by combining several different expert-surveys via supervised machine learning techniques. Employing the random forest regression algorithm, we greatly expand the geographical and temporal coverage of two well-known populism indicators, which are based on the discursive and the ideational approach, respectively. The resulting multidimensional measures capture party-level populism on a continuous 0–10 scale, covering 1920 parties in 169 countries from 1970 to 2019. Our measures accurately replicate both definitions of populism, although the indicators may be more suitable for predicting populist outcomes in Western countries, as compared to non-Western ones.
- Love is blind: partisan alignment and political corruption in Spain(2021) Borrella-Mas, M.A. (Miguel Ángel); Rode, M. (Martin)Ever since the spectacular boom and bust cycle of the Spanish real estate industry, endemic corruption at the local level has become a widely recognized problem in the national public discourse. In an effort to expose an under-explored political determinant, this paper investigates the effect of local and regional alignment in fomenting corruption at the Spanish municipal level. To do so, we construct an ample panel dataset on the prevalence of corrupt practices by local politicians, which is employed to test the possible impact of partisan alignment in three consecutive joint municipal and regional elections. Findings show aligned municipalities to be more corrupt than non-aligned ones, an effect that is further associated with absolute majorities at both levels of government and higher capital transfers. By contrast, we also show that ¿throwing the rascals out¿ could be an effective strategy for curbing the corrupt practices of aligned municipalities. This indicates that the democratic political process may be effective in corruption control if agreements can be reached to remove corrupt politicians or parties from power.
- The economics of change and stability in social trust: Evidence from (and for) Catalan secession(Wiley, 2021) Borrella-Mas, M.A. (Miguel Ángel); Bjornskov, C. (Christian); Rode, M. (Martin)Consequences of social trust are comparatively well studied, while its societal determinants are often subject to debate. This paper studies both in the context of Catalan attempts to secede from Spain: First, we test whether Catalonia enjoys higher levels of social capital that it is prevented from capi-talizing on. Second, the paper examines whether secessionist movements create animosity and political divisions within society that undermine trust. Employing the nine available waves of the European Social Survey for Spain, we only find weak indications that social trust levels are higher in Catalonia than in the rest of the country. Interestingly, we further find testimony of a purely transient “exuberance ef-fect” after secession became a real option, indicating that the long- run evolution of social trust may best be thought of as a stable punctuated equilibrium.
- Can we all be Denmark? The role of civic attitudes in welfare state reforms(Springer, 2023) Celico, A. (Andrea); Rode, M. (Martin)Research has demonstrated the economic effectiveness of welfare state reforms that follow the Danish flexicurity model, broadly specifying the combination of highly flexible labor market policies and generous protection schemes. Notwithstanding, it has also been argued that large and generous welfare states may erode civic attitudes, defined here as people’s willingness to cheat on taxes and claim transfers to which they are not entitled. Combining data from all available waves of the World Values Survey and the European Values Study with a self-constructed flexicurity index, this paper finds that welfare state reforms involving a combination of higher benefits, lower labor market regulations, and active labor market policies are not significantly associated with an erosion of civic attitudes.
- Populism and inequality: Does reality match the populist rhetoric?(2023) Strobl, M. (Martin); Sáenz-de-Viteri-Vázquez, A. (Andrea); Bjornskov, C. (Christian); Rode, M. (Martin)Populists since the Roman Republic have argued for redistribution from an elite to ordinary people and depicted themselves as the true representative of the ‘people’. However, very little research has explored whether populists actually affect the distribution of income or consumption when in power. The present paper therefore asks, whether populists admin- istrations actually achieve redistribution. After a short theoretical discussion, our empirical strategy combines new data on populism in Latin America and the Caribbean with infor- mation on income and consumption inequality since 1970. Estimates suggest that populist governments in the region generally have achieved no redistribution, leading us to con- clude that the redistributive aims of populists are mainly empty rhetoric.
- The institutional foundations of surf break governance in Atlantic Europe(Springer, 2021) Rode, M. (Martin)The sport of surfing is best enjoyed with one rider on one wave, but crowding makes that optimal assignment increasingly hard to attain. This study examines the phenomenon of surf localism, whereby competitors are excluded from waves by intimidation and the threat of violence. An alternative way to accommodate crowds is contained in the surfer’s code, which sets informal rules and self-enforced regulations to avoid conflict in the water. Both regimes establish property rights over common pool resources with no state intervention, creating a setting wherein users face the question of cooperation or conflict. The disposition to cooperate and follow norms has been shown to vary substantially across different cultures, though. Employing data from over seven hundred surf spots on the European Atlantic coast, this study reports evidence that certain informal cultural norms significantly reduce the probability of violent exclusion, while formal state institutions mostly are irrelevant. The results also indicate that informal norms become more important with greater resource quality and, possibly, with increasing scarcity.