Download This Paper'Love Thy Neighbour'? The Effect of Income and Language Differences on Votes for Municipal Secessions
VATT Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 107
67 Pages Posted: 3 May 2018
Date Written: April 16, 2018
Abstract
This paper studies voters' preferences on municipal borders in a setting with cohabiting linguistic communities. It takes advantage of unique data from referendum results in the Canadian province of Quebec in 2004, which allows a direct investigation of voter preferences. I find that differences in income and language affect the likelihood of secession. Notably, I also find that these effects are interdependent, suggesting that the support for a local secession is affected to some degree by out-group aversion. Finally, I find that voters are willing to pay additional taxes to live in their jurisdiction of choice.
Keywords: Secession, Diversity, Voter Behaviour, Municipal Mergers
JEL Classification: D72, H73, H77
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation