Financial Remittances and Election Turnouts in the Municipalities of the Republic of Serbia: The Economy of Voting

Absztrakt (kivonat)

The paper investigates possible evidence on whether remittances from abroad had a significant influence on the outcome of Serbia’s presidential elections. Using the so-called linear random intercept model (Maximum Likelihood), based on the data for municipalities that held presidential elections between 2002 and 2017, the study has found that voter turnout rates were positively related to the share of remittances in the municipality's GDP per capita. Further, it revealed how the size of the population temporary abroad had a negative effect on voter turnouts throughout the whole examined period at the municipality level. Also, the study captured, at a 0.05 alpha critical level, the effect of unemployment, average age, and share of unmarried in the total population. Eventually, in the municipalities where ethnic groups made up the majority, on average, election participation rates were lower by 3, 31 percent. Finally, according to the utilized statistical model, after the years following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the voter turnout in the presidential election in Serbia, increased by more than 22 per cent. Consequently, in order to offer a sounder rationale for the observed association i.e., to test whether the sign of the time-series association between voting rates and remittances was different before and after 2008, the data set was divided into two subsamples: 2002-2008 and 2012-2017.The results of the period analysis confirmed that the sign of the time-series association between the election participation rates and financial inflows from abroad was negative before 2012. The final results for Serbia, from a perspective of the previous literature, that the economical vacuum, created by the disappearance of state-provided support will be filled by remittances, cannot be confirmed. Possible reasons for the results are discussed.