Washington Post, December 5, 2016, by Catherine Rampell.

“Around the world, the populist, ethnonationalist far right is gaining vote share — in some cases (ahem) even winning elections. Also around the world, political observers are shocked — shocked! — that such anti-democratic impulses are gaining ground. But an important new study from three German economists suggests that these phenomena could have been predicted. In fact, given the 2007-2008 financial crisis, they were virtually preordained. […]

“People see financial crises as man-made disasters,” explains Moritz Schularick, an economics professor at the University of Bonn and study co-author. This means that afterward, there is a popular impulse to punish those thought to be responsible.”

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