Who Benefits from EU Money? The Political Effects of European Union Investment instruments

The European Union's regional investment policy allocates billions of Euros each year to foster economic and social cohesion through one of the largest public investment programs in the world. The following research examines the under-investigated electoral impact of this policy using novel data and causal inference methods. I structure my thesis in three parts. First, I investigate the effect of EU funding on the electoral performance of Eurosceptic parties and find that highly funded regions display lower support for Eurosceptic voting. Second, I turn to the effect on the electoral performance of government parties and find that national incumbents in highly funded regions receive more votes compared to the counterfactual regions. The third paper investigates the electoral effects of large changes in EU funding. Following the literature on the economic impact of EU funding, I find that negative changes in per capita EU funding are associated with lower political support for the EU in elections.

Grantor dc:publisher

ETH Zurich

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Vergioglou, Ioannis; id_orcid0000-0003-2402-2370

Contributors dc:contributor

• Schimmelfennig, Frank; id_orcid0000-0003-2402-2370
• Hangartner, Dominik
• Schneider, Christina

• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/320
• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/350
• Political science
• Public administration

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Licence

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000638365

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/638365