Emigration and populism during the financial crisis

While a very rich literature has emerged on the relationship between immigration and the rise of right-wing populism, we know little about the relationship between emigration and populism. This study explores whether and how emigration, that was triggered by the financial crisis, has supported the emergence of new populist parties. It focuses on the case of Spain given that it was highly affected by the financial crisis and the availability of local-level data on emigration including emigrants’ destination countries. The study investigates the relationship between emigration and the electoral strength of Podemos relying on an instrumental-variable regression analysis adapting the research design of Tabellini’s study (2020) on the political effects of immigration. The study’s research design will exploit the exogenous shock of the financial crisis and instrument emigrants’ destination choices based on preexisting emigration patterns. We will construct a modified shift-share instrument (Card 2000) to estimate the number of emigrants that left over time by interacting the number of emigrants before the financial crisis with subsequent outflows to each destiny country in the EU.