Anti-finance sentiment alone cannot explain the Danat effect on Nazi voting

Evidence

We interpret the interaction between a previous history of anti-Semitism and the effect of Danat’s collapse, as well as the differential electoral impact of Danat and Dresdner, as indicative of a cultural channel. As anti-Semitic and the more-general anti-finance attitudes are often highly correlated, especially in Germany (Becker and Pascali, 2019; D’Acunto et al., 2019; D’Acunto, 2020), our results could also reflect general anti-finance sentiment. To examine this possibility in more detail, in Table 9 we first examine if memories of the hyperinflation are a possible confounding factor. We use votes for the Volksrechtspartei (VRP), a party that sought a revaluation of (old) Marks, as an indicator of suffering and antipathy towards the financial sector. In column (1) areas that gave the VRP more votes did not support the Nazis more after the onset of the banking crisis. Moreover, adding the VRP vote share in column (2) does not affect the coefficient on danat. — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 141

Categorization

• QUESTION: Pursue exactly how the VRP revaluation votes proxy anti-finance antipathy versus anti-Semitic framing — the load-bearing distinction of the chapter.
• XREF: connects to: Danat-connected firms cut wage bills far more than matched city and industry peers — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 135; Danat exposure radicalized Nazi voting beyond the income losses it caused — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 113; Danatbank-exposed cities saw a 2.9-percentage-point extra rise in Nazi vote share. (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Local Jewish financial presence did not amplify the Danat effect on Nazi voting #corroborates (0.88) — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 142
• Anti-Semitic cultural context magnified the Danat crisis’s radicalizing effect #qualifies (0.80) — Sebastian Doerr et al., Financial Crises and Political…, 151