Joint research unit 7235

Competitiveness and negative reciprocity are strong predictors of political preferences

Speaker :Thomas Buser (Université d'Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute)

Abstract: I analyze Dutch panel data that contains rich information on voting, political opinions, and personality traits. I show that “adversarial” economic preferences – competitiveness and negative reciprocity – but also “prosocial” preferences including trust and altruism are strong predictors of political preferences, with predictive power similar to household income. Past studies have shown that standard personality traits are reliably linked to political preferences. I replicate these associations and show that competitiveness and social preferences predict voting independently from – and often with larger effect sizes than – these other traits. The complex Dutch party landscape allows me to go further than a simple left-right comparison to show that associations between individual traits and political preferences are non-linear along the left-right spectrum. Competitiveness predicts voting for center-right, economically liberal parties whereas social preferences are stronger predictors for voting for the populist far right. Put differently, competitiveness predicts voting for parties that are economically conservative whereas negative reciprocity and low pro-sociality predict voting for parties that are socially conservative.

AGENDA

Thursday 8 June 2023

Doctorants

Sahil Chopra (Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord)

Economics of litigation : Securities class action with third-party funding

Thursday 8 June 2023

Economics of litigation : Securities class action with third-party funding

Sahil Chopra (Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord)

Economics of litigation : Securities class action with third-party funding

Monday 12 June 2023

Law, Institutions and Economics in Nanterre (LIEN)

Arthur Silve (IAST / Univ. Laval)

TBA

Monday 12 June 2023

TBA

Arthur Silve (IAST / Univ. Laval)

TBA

Thursday 15 June 2023

Lunch

Guillaume Pierné

TBA

Thursday 15 June 2023

TBA

Guillaume Pierné

TBA

Monday 19 June 2023

Law, Institutions and Economics in Nanterre (LIEN)

Juan Mora-Sanguinetti (Banco de Espana)

TBA

Monday 19 June 2023

TBA

Juan Mora-Sanguinetti (Banco de Espana)

TBA

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