Etla researcher Paolo Fornaro’s research has been published in an academic journal

Etla Economic Research researcher Paolo Fornaro’s research has been published in a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal European Journal of Political Economy. Now published research explores the relationship between labor market microdynamics and populism support in Finland.

Paolo Fornaro’s and Antti Kaihovaara’s research” Microdynamics, granularity and populism: the Finnish case” looks at the link between job and worker flows and support for populism in Finland. The analysis is exploratory and the main aim is to verify whether microdynamics are helpful in explaining populism support in a statistical sense, rather than finding proper causal effects. Support for populism is measured by looking at municipal-level support toward the Finns Party, the Finnish right-wing populist party, during the 2011 and 2015 parliamentary elections.

Among other results, the study finds a statistically significant association between labor market churning (how much workers change job, given the number of job places created and destroyed) and populism support. Rigid labor markets and negative economic shocks, such as factory closure, are positively related with voting the Finns Party. On the other hand, an increase in labor market dynamism seems to be associated with lower support for populism.

Now published research is a part of multidisciplinary consortium “Tackling Biases and Bubbles in Participation (BIBU)”, funded by Academia of Finland, that explores the dynamics of citizenship in Finland. Other consortium partners, beside Etla Economic Research, are University of Helsinki, University of Tampere, National Institute for Health and Welfare, University of Turku, Stanford University and Demos Research Institute.

Fornaro is particularly pleased with the publication of this study in an academic journal.

– It is always nice to have your work published in an academic journal, but I am particularly pleased with this research project because it is based on an interdisciplinary analysis – my co-author Antti Kaihovaara has a political science background – which was an enriching experience for me, and hopefully it can be interesting for a wider audience, Fornaro says.

European Journal of Political Economy is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on economic phenomena in the context of collective decision making, political behavior and the role of institutions.