Economic voting in South Korea: The 1988 assembly elections

Larry L. Wade, Seong Jin Kang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The 1988 Assembly elections in South Korea provide an opportunity to explore whether voting based on short-term economic fluctuations was a feature of the elections. The research design regresses party votes from a large sample of the 224 electoral districts against several well-known determinants of Korean voting behavior (regionalism, urban-rural residence, and social class), as well as district unemployment rates and levels and changes in income. With traditional explanations of voting behavior held constant, income variables had no apparent influence on the vote. However, the coefficients for unemployment rates are large, statistically significant, and in a direction entirely consistent with the theory of rational economic voting. There are grounds for including short-term economic variables in future modeling of Korean electoral behavior.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)46-58
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Northeast Asian Studies
Volume9
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1990 Jun

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Environmental Science(all)
  • Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)

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