Intergenerational Mobility and The Rise of Populism

Details

Supervisors

Parienté, William

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences économiques, orientation générale

Abstract

The Italian general elections of March 2018 led to a coalition government formed by the two main populist parties, the former Northern League, recently renamed League, a far-right and nationalistic party, and the Five Star Movement, a newly-born party demanding more forms of direct democracy. In light of these results, this thesis aims at exploring the impact of the perception of intergenerational mobility on the rise of Italian populism. In particular, by analyzing three different surveys, we firstly notice a rise in the perceived downward intergenerational mobility in Italy and a great variation of these perceptions across Italian regions, European countries and age groups. Moreover, we find that the downward perception of intergenerational mobility has favored the recent victory of the Northern League, while it seems to have no effects on the support for the Five Star Movement. This significant effect is confirmed when we instrument the perceptions with the import shocks from China between 1992 and 2006. In particular, it seems that individuals living in Italian regions more exposed to Chinese shocks are more likely to perceive a downward economic mobility. Indeed, Chinese import competition can have negative effects on the labor market also in the long-run, shifting the perception of intergenerational mobility and leading to the rise of nationalistic parties. Finally, we notice that the actual levels of intergenerational mobility, measured on the basis of the European Socio-Economic Classification, can differ from the perceived intergenerational mobility and the former has no impact on the voting behavior. This suggests the increasing importance of perceptions on political preferences.