Agenda

27 Apr 2026 12:15

Galina Zudenkova (TU Dortmund)

Meeting Room 1, San Giobbe Economics Campus

 

Galina Zudenkova (TU Dortmund) - Layoffs, Pocketbooks, and Partisan Hooks (co-authored with Hélia Costa and Zoë Kuehn)

Abstract:
Rising partisanship has increasingly led voters to prioritize partisan alignment over pocketbook interests at the ballot box in recent decades. We examine this question, both empirically and theoretically, in the context of U.S. mass layoffs from 1995 to 2012, where pocketbook considerations are expected to prevail strongly. Exploiting within-county variation, we document pro-partisan vote shifts in partisan states: a 1% county workforce layoff raises the Democratic presidential two-party vote share by 0.26 percentage points in blue-state counties and lowers it by 0.19 percentage points in red-state counties, alongside classic pocketbook punishment of incumbents in contested states. These findings are rationalized by a model in which layoffs trigger retrospective pocketbook accountability that hurts incumbents while amplifying partisan hooks through greater exposure to prevailing state-specific partisan slants in media and local social environments. Microevidence from survey data, time-use surveys, and Google Trends supports these mechanisms.

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

Department of Economics (EcSeminars)

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