IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v29y1997i12p1585-1592.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral and partisan cycles between US economic performance and presidential popularity: a comment on Stephen E. Haynes

Author

Listed:
  • Wilko Letterie
  • Otto Swank

Abstract

In this paper we discuss a recent paper by Stephen E. Haynes in which he relates electoral cycles in political support to electoral cycles in economic variables. Haynes finds that the cycle in support for Republican presidents is explained by the cycle in economic variables, whereas the cycle in support for Democratic presidents is not. In our opinion this shortcoming is due to his specification of the popularity function. Haynes estimates a popularity function which incorporates the notion that voters reward the incumbent for favourable outcomes (score hypothesis). Our popularity function combines the score hypothesis and the notion that voters cast their ballots for the party that best fits the current economic situation (issue hypothesis). We show that the electoral cycle in popularity of both Republican and Democratic presidents is explained very well by the cycle in economic variables.

Suggested Citation

  • Wilko Letterie & Otto Swank, 1997. "Electoral and partisan cycles between US economic performance and presidential popularity: a comment on Stephen E. Haynes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(12), pages 1585-1592.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:29:y:1997:i:12:p:1585-1592
    DOI: 10.1080/00036849700000034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036849700000034
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036849700000034?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbs, Douglas A., 1977. "Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1487, December.
    2. Fair, Ray C, 1978. "The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for President," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 159-173, May.
    3. Swank, O H, 1993. "Popularity Functions Based on the Partisan Theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 339-356, April.
    4. Douglas A. Hibbs, 1994. "The Partisan Model Of Macroeconomic Cycles: More Theory And Evidence For The United States," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 1-23, March.
    5. Nannestad, Peter & Paldam, Martin, 1994. "The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 79(3-4), pages 213-245, June.
    6. Swank, O.T., 1992. "Rational Voters in Partisanship Model," Papers 9222-p, Erasmus University of Rotterdam - Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Alberto Alesina, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 651-678.
    8. Chappell, Henry W, Jr, 1990. "Economic Performance, Voting, and Political Support: A Unified Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 313-320, May.
    9. Chappell, Henry W. & Keech, William R., 1985. "A New View of Political Accountability for Economic Performance," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(1), pages 10-27, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antoine Auberger, 2011. "Popularity Functions for the French President and Prime Minister (1995-2007)," Working Papers halshs-00872313, HAL.
    2. Antoine Auberger, 2020. "The impact of economic and political factors on popularity for France (1981- 2017)," Working Papers hal-02501677, HAL.
    3. Eunmi Kim & Minho Kim, 2007. "Determinants of US antidumping decisions: four perspectives of international trade policymaking," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(12), pages 893-897.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Swank, Otto H., 1998. "Partisan Policies, Macroeconomic Performance and Political Support," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 367-386, April.
    2. Antoine Auberger, 2020. "The impact of economic and political factors on popularity for France (1981- 2017)," Working Papers hal-02501677, HAL.
    3. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2016. "Voting and Popularity," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    4. Paola Assael & Felipe Larraín, 1994. "El Ciclo Político-económico: Teoría, Evidencia y Extensión para una Economía Abierta," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 31(92), pages 87-114.
    5. Fabio Milani, 2010. "Political Business Cycles In The New Keynesian Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 896-915, October.
    6. Spyros Skouras & Nicos Christodoulakis, 2014. "Electoral misgovernance cycles: evidence from wildfires and tax evasion in Greece," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 533-559, June.
    7. Osterloh, Steffen, 2012. "Words speak louder than actions: The impact of politics on economic performance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 318-336.
    8. Fuest, Clemens & Gründler, Klaus & Potrafke, Niklas & Ruthardt, Fabian, 2024. "Read my lips? Taxes and elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    9. Bialkowski, Jedrzej & Gottschalk, Katrin & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2008. "Stock market volatility around national elections," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1941-1953, September.
    10. Ľuboš Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2020. "Political Cycles and Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(11), pages 4011-4045.
    11. Benjamin Fordham, 1998. "Partisanship, Macroeconomic Policy, and U.S. Uses of Force, 1949-1994," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 42(4), pages 418-439, August.
    12. Berlemann, Michael & Enkelmann, Sören, 2014. "The economic determinants of U.S. presidential approval: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 41-54.
    13. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    14. Francisco José Veiga & Linda Gonçalves Veiga, 2004. "Popularity functions, partisan effects, and support in Parliament," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 101-115, March.
    15. Faust, Jon & Irons, John S., 1999. "Money, politics and the post-war business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 61-89, February.
    16. Spyros Skouras & Nicos Christodoulakis, 2011. "Electoral Misgovernance Cycles: Evidence from wildfires and tax evasion in Greece and elsewhere," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 47, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    17. Jerôme, Bruno & Jerôme-Speziari, Véronique, 2010. "Forecasting partisan dynamics in Europe," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 98-115, January.
    18. Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2016. "Is there a link between politics and stock returns? A literature survey," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 15-23.
    19. Lippi, Francesco & Swank, Otto H., 1999. "Rational Voters, Elections, and Central Banks: Do Representative Democracies Need Nonrepresentative Institutions?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 515-525, July.
    20. Georgios Efthyvoulou, 2012. "Political budget cycles in the European Union and the impact of political pressures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 295-327, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:29:y:1997:i:12:p:1585-1592. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.