Regional resources and democratic secessionism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gehring, Kai; Schneider, Stephan A.
• 署名单位: University of Zurich; Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich; University of Zurich; Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104073
• 发表日期: 2020
• 关键词: Fiscal federalism; Inter-regional transfers; redistribution; SECESSION; Separatism; RESOURCES; Economic voting

摘要

Although resources have been shown to influence secessionist conflicts in developing countries, their effect in established democracies has largely been neglected. We integrate regional resources and inter-regional transfers in a model of democratic secession, and show that relative regional income correlates positively with secessionist party success in a large panel of regions. To establish causality, our difference-in-differences and triple-differences designs exploit that Scotland and Wales both feature separatist parties, but only an independent Scotland would profit from oil discoveries off its coast. We document an economically and statistically significant positive effect of regional resources and rule out plausible alternative explanations. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.