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The economic cost of populism
11–20 of 68 posts
Re: The economic cost of populism
#12The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me.
As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.
Re: The economic cost of populism
#13> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…
That Nazi regime accomplished a lot of work. Hitler is history's most successful populist. Did he help Germany's bottom line?
Re: The economic cost of populism
#14> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…
I don't have access to the article, but do they define "populism" in it? The same Wikipedia article you linked to also says > In popular discourse—where the term has often been used pejoratively—it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politician…
Yeah someone else linked it. It was fairly meaningless:
According to today’s workhorse definition, populism is defined as a political style centered on the supposed struggle of “people vs. the establishment” (Mudde 2004). Populists place the narrative of “people vs. elites” at the center of their political agenda and then claim to be the sole representative of “the people.” This definition has become increasingly dominant, and is now also widely used by economists (see Section 2, and the recent survey paper by Guriev and Papaioannou, 2020). Populist leaders claim to represent the “true, common people” against the dishonest “elites,” thus separating society into two seemingly homogeneous and antagonistic groups.
Re: The economic cost of populism
#15> We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typica…
>>Are we missing something?
Yes
H.L.Menken: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
Populism is about revenge of the narcissistic dullards who are sick of the experts getting to say how things run and what to do.
Just because experts also get it wrong sometimes doesn't mean that they should be thrown out, yet the populists are happy to do it (usually backed by behind-the-scenes moneyed interests who want to destroy regulations preventing them from externalizing costs)
Their populist leaders throw out or disregard the experts, and start letting the moneyed interests externalize costs in thousands of frankly stupider (but popular) decisions. It also popularizes things like bigotry and anti-science aggression, which increases friction and bad decisions in the private sphere. These bad decisions seem great at first, but eventually accumulate to a far poorer performing economy & society.
Populism literally corrodes the foundations of a complex & successful society.
Re: The economic cost of populism
#16The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me. As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.
What about the alt/far-right? They fall under the umbrella of populism and seem quite dangerous, especially towards minorities.
Re: The economic cost of populism
#17The resurgence of the term "populism" has always been curious to me. As far as I can tell it means "people not voting how they are supposed to". Much like how we have ousting/coup, freedom-fighter/terrorist, government/regime, we have democracy/populism.
For the majority of cases, it just means "ignore the complexity of reality and go with the simple solution".
Sometimes, populists do really believe in what they are saying and doing. And the simplicity is what makes them popular - hence populism.
The problem is that reality doesn't care. I have yet to see the case when following a populist leader doesn't end up in a disaster.
Re: The economic cost of populism
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
They define what they mean by populism and economy is effectively GDP, if I read it right. Doesn't seem that wooly to me in the paper itself. A (earlier) version of the paper seems to be here: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Public...
Thanks for digging that up! Ah, the paper itself is much better than I'd expected It's also unwieldy - looks more like a PhD thesis. (bloody shame we can't just have an internet that delivers the information concerned rather than having to wait for someone to sleuth down the actual dirt) They do indeed define "populism" in section 2.1, rather thoroughly, as political "splitting" (I borrow a psych term here). It's act…
Do they control for the fact that populists will have more electoral success during financial crises and such?
AEA is the economic establishment so hardly the people I would trust to fairly judge those that challenge the status quo.
Re: The economic cost of populism
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for digging that up! Ah, the paper itself is much better than I'd expected It's also unwieldy - looks more like a PhD thesis. (bloody shame we can't just have an internet that delivers the information concerned rather than having to wait for someone to sleuth down the actual dirt) They do indeed define "populism" in section 2.1, rather thoroughly, as political "splitting" (I borrow a psych term here). It's act…
Do they control for the fact that populists will have more electoral success during financial crises and such? AEA is the economic establishment so hardly the people I would trust to fairly judge those that challenge the status quo.
Is that even true on populist and financial crises?
Re: The economic cost of populism
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