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The Impact of Corona Populism: Empirical Evidence from Austria and Theory

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  • Patrick Mellacher

Abstract

I study the co-evolution between public opinion and party policy in situations of crises by investigating a policy U-turn of a major Austrian right-wing party (FPOE) during the Covid-19 pandemic. My analysis suggests the existence of both i) a "Downsian" effect, which causes voters to adapt their party preferences based on policy congruence and ii) a "party identification" effect, which causes partisans to realign their policy preferences based on "their" party's platform. Specifically, I use individual-level panel data to show that i) "corona skeptical" voters who did not vote for the FPOE in the pre-Covid-19 elections of 2019 were more likely to vote for the party after it embraced "corona populism", and ii) beliefs of respondents who declared that they voted for the FPOE in 2019 diverged from the rest of the population in three out of four health-dimensions only after the turn, causing them to underestimate the threat posed by Covid-19 compared to the rest of the population. Using aggregate-level panel data, I study whether the turn has produced significant behavioral differences which could be observed in terms of reported cases and deaths per capita. Paradoxically, after the turn the FPOE vote share is significantly positively correlated with deaths per capita, but not with the reported number of infections. I hypothesize that this due to a self-selection bias in testing, which causes a correlation between the number of "corona skeptics" and the share of unreported cases after the turn. I find empirical support for this hypothesis in individual-level data from a Covid-19 prevalence study that involves information about participants' true vs. reported infection status. I finally study a simple heterogeneous mixing epidemiological model and show that a testing bias can indeed explain the apparent paradox of an increase in deaths without an increase in reported cases.

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  • Patrick Mellacher, 2020. "The Impact of Corona Populism: Empirical Evidence from Austria and Theory," Papers 2012.14962, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2012.14962
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    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Distancing and Lockdown > Information and politics
    2. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Behavioral issues > Misinformation

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    1. Martin Lange & Ole Monscheuer, 2022. "Spreading the disease: Protest in times of pandemics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2664-2679, December.
    2. Patrick Mellacher, 2022. "Endogenous viral mutations, evolutionary selection, and containment policy design," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(3), pages 801-825, July.
    3. Proaño, Christian R. & Kukacka, Jiri & Makarewicz, Tomasz, 2024. "Belief-driven dynamics in a behavioral SEIRD macroeconomic model with sceptics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 312-333.
    4. Bertoli, Paola & Grembi, Veronica & Morelli, Massimo & Rosso, Anna Cecilia, 2023. "In medio stat virtus? Effective communication and preferences for redistribution in hard times," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 105-147.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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