IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v41y1998i1p143-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Macroeconomic Fluctuations on the Electoral Fortunes of House Incumbents

Author

Listed:
  • Grier, Kevin B
  • McGarrity, Joseph P

Abstract

The effect of macroeconomic fluctuations on House elections is a long debated, but still unresolved, issue. We argue that return rates are theoretically superior to vote shares as measures of electoral accountability and that incumbents, not candidates of the president's party, are the legislators voters hold responsible. We develop and test an incumbent accountability model using incumbent return rates in the U.S. House from 1916 to 1994, finding a strongly significant effect of both income growth and the misery index. However, the data reject both our pure incumbency model and the traditional presidential party model, indicating that both factors are relevant to voters. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Grier, Kevin B & McGarrity, Joseph P, 1998. "The Effect of Macroeconomic Fluctuations on the Electoral Fortunes of House Incumbents," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 143-161, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:41:y:1998:i:1:p:143-61
    DOI: 10.1086/467387
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467387
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467387?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. Polsby, Nelson W., 1968. "The Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 144-168, March.
    2. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    3. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 21-36, March.
    4. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    5. Bloom, Howard S. & Price, H. Douglas, 1975. "Voter Response to Short-Run Economic Conditions: the Asymmetric Effect of Prosperity and Recession," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1240-1254, December.
    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. Joseph McGarrity, 2005. "Macroeconomic conditions and committee re-election rates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 453-480, September.
    2. Michael Toma & Richard Cebula, 2001. "Politicians, deficits, and monetary policy in the U.S. revisited," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 7(4), pages 419-430, November.
    3. Enrique López‐Bazo, 2022. "The Impact of Cohesion Policy on Regional Differences in Support for the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1219-1236, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Joseph McGarrity, 2001. "Vote share and return rates: A comparison of two measures of election outcomes," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(3), pages 294-303, September.
    6. Edward López & Carlos Ramírez, 2008. "Mr. Smith and the economy: the influence of economic conditions on individual legislator voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 1-17, July.
    7. Edward López & Carlos Ramírez, 2004. "Party Polarization and the Business Cycle in the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 413-430, February.
    8. Amanat ALI* & Eatzaz AHMAD** & BILAWAL***, 2019. "SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEPRIVATIONS AND VOTERS’ PREFERENCES: A District Level Analysis," Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics Research Centre, vol. 29(2), pages 181-199.
    9. Brian Logan & Daniel Sutter, 2004. "Newspaper quality, pulitzer prizes, and newspaper circulation," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 32(2), pages 100-112, June.
    10. Muhammad Shahid Akram & Toseef Azid, 2006. "Economics of Regaining Office: The Case of Pakistan (1947-2005)," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 45(4), pages 913-923.

    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. Umeno, Luis Gustavo & Bugarin, Maurício Soares, 2008. "Electoral Control in the Presence of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 28(1), May.
    2. Uwe Dulleck & Berthold U. Wigger, 2012. "Expert Politicians, Electoral Control, and Fiscal Restraints," CESifo Working Paper Series 3738, CESifo.
    3. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    4. Vergne, Clémence, 2009. "Democracy, elections and allocation of public expenditures in developing countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 63-77, March.
    5. George Ward, 2015. "Is Happiness a Predictor of Election Results?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1343, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati & Francesco Sobbrio, 2020. "The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3305-3336.
    7. Arnaud Dellis, 2009. "The Salient Issue of Issue Salience," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 203-231, April.
    8. Henrik Jordahl, 2006. "An economic analysis of voting in Sweden," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 251-265, June.
    9. Gavoille, Nicolas, 2018. "Who are the ‘ghost’ MPs? Evidence from the French parliament," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 134-148.
    10. Alberto Alesina & Filipe R. Campante & Guido Tabellini, 2008. "Why is Fiscal Policy Often Procyclical?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(5), pages 1006-1036, September.
    11. Panu Poutvaara & Tuomas Takalo, 2007. "Candidate quality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 7-27, February.
    12. Laurent Bouton & Paola Conconi & Francisco Pino & Maurizio Zanardi, 2021. "The Tyranny of the Single-Minded: Guns, Environment, and Abortion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 48-59, March.
    13. Dhammika Dharmapala & Etienne Lehmann, 2003. "A Median Voter Theorem for Postelection Politics," Working papers 2003-47, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    14. Joseph J. Capuno & Stella A. Quimbo & Aleli D. Kraft & Carlos Antonio R. Tan, Jr. & Vigile Marie B. Fabella, 2012. "Perks and public provisions : Effects of yardstick competition on local government fiscal behavior in the Philippines," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 201208, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    15. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2016. "The cost of doing the right thing. A model of populism with rent-seeking politicians and the economic crisis," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis1602, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    16. Laurent Bouton & Paola Conconi & Francisco Pino & Maurizio Zanardi, 2018. "Guns, Environment, and Abortion: How Single-Minded Voters Shape Politicians' Decisions," Working Papers wp459, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    17. Gerard Padró i Miquel & Erik Snowberg, 2012. "The lesser evil: Executive accountability with partisan supporters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(1), pages 19-45, January.
    18. Eoin F. McGuirk & Nathaniel Hilger & Nicholas Miller, 2023. "No Kin in the Game: Moral Hazard and War in the US Congress," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(9), pages 2370-2401.
    19. Bernardo P. Schettini & Rafael Terra, 2020. "Electoral incentives and Public Employees’ Retirement Systems in Brazilian municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 79-103, July.
    20. Liu, Qijun, 2007. "How to improve government performance?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 1198-1206, 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:ucp:jlawec:v:41:y:1998:i:1:p:143-61. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.