Political Aspects of Macroeconomic Policies and Growth Models
The Great Recession dragged macroeconomic policies from the technocratic realm of “quiet politics” into the electoral realm of “noisy politics”. Still, comparative political economy has not adequately studied the politics of macroeconomic policies in the twenty-first century. It lacks a clear understanding of how the distributive consequences of different macroeconomic policies translate into political struggles over power and policies. This research project thus studies the political conflicts behind macroeconomic policies and growth models. It assumes that the economy is not isolated from electoral competition in liberal democracies and that different routes to growth can be politically contested. Therefore, the project analyses how economic interests are aggregated into political coalitions that rally around different economic policies. Specifically, it studies social and political conflicts over macroeconomic policies in the advanced economies from 1985 to 2015 and aims to answer three research questions: (1) To what extent are macroeconomic policies contested among voters? (2) How and why do different political actors support or oppose different macroeconomic policies? (3) How do these actors legitimize support for their preferred policies among voters?
Work in progress:
- “Public opinion towards growth models: Evidence from a new survey” (with Lucio Baccaro, Kostas Gemenis, and Erik Neimanns)
- “Beyond dogma and dominance: A state-centered explanation for Germany’s investment gap” (with Donato di Carlo and Leon Wansleben)
- “Are voters Keynesian, and if so, of what kind? Evidence from a survey experiment during the corona crisis” (with Lucio Baccaro and Erik Neimanns)
- “Unconventional monetary policies and anti-system attitudes and voting” (with Jeffrey Chwieroth)
- “Current account imbalances, foreign investments, and valuation changes” (with Guido Baldi)