Researchers Christian Dippel, Robert Gold, Stephan Heblich, and Rodrigo Pinto investigate economic causes of the rising support of populist parties in industrialized countries. Looking at Germany, they find that exposure to imports from low wage countries increases the support for nationalist parties between 1987–2009, while increasing exports have the opposite effect. The net effect translates into increasing support of the right-populist AfD after its emergence in 2013. Individual data from the German Socioeconomic Panel reveal that low-skilled manufacturing workers’ political preferences are most responsive to trade exposure. Using a novel approach to causal mediation analysis, they identify trade-induced labor market adjustments as economic mechanism causing the voting response to international trade.
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May 12, 2021