Does segregation nurture the Sweden Democrats? : The political economy of segregation

Abstract: This thesis studies the relationship of cultural and economic segregation with politics.Based on a theoretical model where the provision of a public good depends on howfar apart voters are in terms of preferences, it is suggested that the support for theSweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) to some extent is driven by segregation.Using municipal level data on incomes and namesday names in zip code areas an indexof segregation is created in order to test this hypothesis. The results are inconclusive butthere is an indication of a negative association between multidimensional segregationand the election results for the Sweden Democrats.