Local Economic Shocks and National Election Outcomes: Evidence from Hungarian Administrative Data

What are the consequences of unequal economic conditions on national election results? In this study, we use extraordinarily granular economic data measured without sampling error to assess how variation in local economic conditions across 3152 settlements affects incumbent support across the two most recent Hungarian elections. In addition, we use 95 monthly surveys capturing vote intention for nearly 100,000 respondents to assess possible individual level mechanisms. We find that the local economic milieu has a substantial effect on incumbent support, and that this effect was especially pronounced in the 2010 election that coincided with the peak of the Great Recession. Our micro-level analyses support these findings and suggest that the effect of local unemployment is unlikely to be explained by an aggregation of dissatisfaction among the unemployed.