Economic preferences, personality, and voting

Abstract: I analyze Dutch survey data that contains rich information on voting, political opinions, and personality traits. I show that political preferences are better predicted by personality and economic preferences than by a rich set of socioeconomic characteristics that are typically seen as the most important determinants. Personality and economic preferences also explain large parts of the gender and education gaps in voting and ideology. The large number of parties represented in the Dutch parliament allows me to go beyond a simple left-right classification and rank votes along an economic left-right axis, a social progressive-conservative axis, as well as a populism axis. Voting on each of these axes correlates with a different set of individual traits.