On Credit Guarantees to Firms and the Far Right

50 Pages Posted: 27 Jun 2023 Last revised: 28 Jun 2023

See all articles by Ernest Dautović

Ernest Dautović

European Central Bank

Robin Hsieh

European Central Bank (ECB)

Date Written: June 22, 2023

Abstract

The phenomenon of political populism and its financial determinants have proved elusive. We utilize the sudden and uneven change in credit conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented government credit guarantee program in France to investigate how liquidity support to firms affect support for right-wing populist parties. Drawing on credit registry data, we build a postcode-municipality-level dataset and show a robust negative relationship between government-guaranteed credit to firms and change in support for the far right. The relationship is driven by micro firms where the median number of employees is one, and where the government support is more tangible to the employees-electorate working for those firms. This relationship holds across presidential and parliamentary elections, and the results are robust for the inclusion of standard demographic and socio-economic characteristics of populist vote, and Covid-19 incidence.

Keywords: Firms, Credit, Government guarantees, Fiscal policy, Populism

JEL Classification: D72, E44, G18, G21, H81

Suggested Citation

Dautović, Ernest and Hsieh, Robin, On Credit Guarantees to Firms and the Far Right (June 22, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4488133 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4488133

Ernest Dautović (Contact Author)

European Central Bank ( email )

Sonnemannstrasse 22
Frankfurt am Main, 60314
Germany

Robin Hsieh

European Central Bank (ECB)

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