I’m confused. The author suggests that stagnating GDPs cause populist movements in Western Europe.
And then he suggests that growing GDPs cause populist movements in Eastern Europe.
How can high and low GDP growth both be simultaneously causal for populism?
Assuming, as he does, that correlation is tantamount to causation, has he considered that it may in fact be the rising banana prices in Venezuela that have driven the observed populism?
I too am confused! Do populist movement cause changes to GDP or vice versa?
Liam F
2 years ago
simplistic nonsense. You could pick any single vector you like and thence prove black is white – Or vice versa. maybe it was the level of youth unemployment in southern Europe that increased populism? or mass migration that proved it didn’t .
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Eh? EU investment largely goes to Eastern European countries. Meanwhile Germany economically screwed the club med countries with an artificially managed currency.
Nothing to do with populism. The sky has always been blue and people die, it ain’t connected.
Adeyanju adebiyi
2 years ago
Populism has nothing to do with GDP growth. To juxtapose the two variables in research will lead to blunder. It’s better the author consider political instability due to changes of political parties in Europe with GDP.
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
The author clearly thinks populism is Bad (see last sentence).
But I’m not sure it is, and mainly because I see no pattern to ‘populism’. Surely, Macron’s rise to power looks like populism, seeing as he created a new party, whereas the UK is accused of this crime even though the Conservative party has existed longer than most other parties, indeed, longer than most countries, and although there were loyal Europhiles in the party, there has also long been a Eurosceptic group, and Thatcher was surely one of them.
Last edited 2 years ago by Colin Elliott
AC Harper
2 years ago
This may seem persuasive at first glance but percentage change in GDP is a proxy for a GDP proxy, and GDP is widely recognised to be a poor quality statistic.
We’re not just comparing apples and pears here, we’re comparing changes in the sizes of apples, pears, bananas, and pineapples etc.
A test: Brexit was a fairly significant change in the political map of Europe, how does the UK GDP explain this?
Not even sure it is persuasive at first glance.
How similar have the last 14 years been in the countries whose GDP/person has been flat: yellow countries on the map? Portugal (-1.8%), Britain (-1.62%), Finland (-0.3%), Russia (+0.8%), Austria (+2.81)? Not very similar, I’d say.
Also why did they use 2007 as the baseline for the UK and 2008 for everyone else? Our GDP/person was substantially higher in 2007 than 2008. I wonder whether we would be +ive if they had used the 2008 figures as the starting point?
I’m confused. The author suggests that stagnating GDPs cause populist movements in Western Europe.
And then he suggests that growing GDPs cause populist movements in Eastern Europe.
How can high and low GDP growth both be simultaneously causal for populism?
Assuming, as he does, that correlation is tantamount to causation, has he considered that it may in fact be the rising banana prices in Venezuela that have driven the observed populism?
I too am confused! Do populist movement cause changes to GDP or vice versa?
simplistic nonsense. You could pick any single vector you like and thence prove black is white – Or vice versa. maybe it was the level of youth unemployment in southern Europe that increased populism? or mass migration that proved it didn’t .
Eh? EU investment largely goes to Eastern European countries. Meanwhile Germany economically screwed the club med countries with an artificially managed currency.
Nothing to do with populism. The sky has always been blue and people die, it ain’t connected.
Populism has nothing to do with GDP growth. To juxtapose the two variables in research will lead to blunder. It’s better the author consider political instability due to changes of political parties in Europe with GDP.
The author clearly thinks populism is Bad (see last sentence).
But I’m not sure it is, and mainly because I see no pattern to ‘populism’. Surely, Macron’s rise to power looks like populism, seeing as he created a new party, whereas the UK is accused of this crime even though the Conservative party has existed longer than most other parties, indeed, longer than most countries, and although there were loyal Europhiles in the party, there has also long been a Eurosceptic group, and Thatcher was surely one of them.
This may seem persuasive at first glance but percentage change in GDP is a proxy for a GDP proxy, and GDP is widely recognised to be a poor quality statistic.
We’re not just comparing apples and pears here, we’re comparing changes in the sizes of apples, pears, bananas, and pineapples etc.
A test: Brexit was a fairly significant change in the political map of Europe, how does the UK GDP explain this?
Not even sure it is persuasive at first glance.
How similar have the last 14 years been in the countries whose GDP/person has been flat: yellow countries on the map? Portugal (-1.8%), Britain (-1.62%), Finland (-0.3%), Russia (+0.8%), Austria (+2.81)? Not very similar, I’d say.
Also why did they use 2007 as the baseline for the UK and 2008 for everyone else? Our GDP/person was substantially higher in 2007 than 2008. I wonder whether we would be +ive if they had used the 2008 figures as the starting point?