Regional resources and democratic secessionism

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of public economics 2020-01, Vol.181, p.104073, Article 104073
Main Authors: Gehring, Kai, Schneider, Stephan A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Economic voting
Fiscal federalism
Inter-regional transfers
Redistribution
Resources
Secession
Separatism
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0047-2727
1879-2316
DOI:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104073