Voting and the Macroeconomy

Hibbs, Douglas A.

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199548477.003.0031

Cited by 22 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…A robust empirical finding in many countries is that economic conditions around election time have predictive power for the incumbent's re-election success. This observation underpins the theory of political business cycles, namely that incumbents seeking re-election can strategically manipulate the economy via expansionary fiscal policies to win votes, a claim that squares well with the observation that pre-election periods are indeed characterized by higher government spending and public goods provision (see Hibbs, 2006 for a review). Yet the existing empirical work faces obvious econometric concerns, as it typically relies on aggregate data with few observations, and most importantly, rarely relies on exogenous sources of policy variation.…”

supporting

confidence: 57%

Government Transfers and Political Support

Manacorda¹,

Miguel²,

Vigorito³

2009

107

126

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We estimate the impact of a large anti-poverty program -the Uruguayan PANES -on political support for the government that implemented it. The program mainly consisted of a monthly cash transfer for a period of roughly two and half years. Using the discontinuity in program assignment based on a pre-treatment score, we find that beneficiary households are 21 to 28 percentage points more likely to favor the current government (relative to the previous government). Impacts on political support are larger among poorer households and for those near the center of the political spectrum, consistent with the probabilistic voting model in political economy. Effects persist after the cash transfer program ends. We estimate that the annual cost of increasing government political support by 1 percentage point is roughly 0.9% of annual government social expenditures.

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supporting

confidence: 57%

Government Transfers and Political Support

Manacorda¹,

Miguel²,

Vigorito³

2009

107

126

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“…The literature on economic voting is truly massive. For recent reviews of the literature see Hibbs () and Lewis‐Beck and Paldam (). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mecro‐Economic Voting: Local Information and Micro‐Perceptions of the Macro‐Economy

Ansolabehere

Meredith

Snowberg

2014

Economics & Politics

142

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We confront a central assertion of the Kramer (1983) critique of using survey data to study economic voting: namely, that individuals' reported economic perceptions contain information that is largely unrelated to the economy. We show theoretically that individuals who are trying to understand their own economic situation will often be better off relying on local-rather than personal or national-economic information, and that this produces behavior similar to sociotropic voting. Examining data from a novel survey instrument that asks respondents their numerical assessment of the unemployment rate confirms this hypothesis. Specifically, individuals' economic perceptions respond to local conditions. Moreover, these perceptions associate with individuals' vote choices. Extending our analysis to a time series of polls from 1980-2008, we verify that patterns in individual data also exist in aggregate economic perceptions and political support. * We thank

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“…Evidence of economic voting is, in an important sense, evidence that democratic politics are functioning the way they are supposed to function (for recent reviews of this extensive literature, see Lewis‐Beck and Stegmaier, ; Duch and Stevenson, ; Hibbs, ). It is strongly suggestive that citizens are paying attention to outcomes that they care about and then, based on the degree to which those outcomes live up to their expectations, rewarding or punishing incumbent politicians accordingly.…”

Section: The Economic Vote In Developing Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is and What May Never Be: Economic Voting in Developing Democracies

Wimpy

Whitten

2017

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective. We propose and test a theory that media freedom determines the extent of economic voting in developing democracies. Methods. Building on extant work that suggests economic voting takes place in developing democracies much like it does in established democracies (Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier, 2008), we test our theory using a new collection of aggregate data from elections in 22 developing democracies in Africa Results. Media freedom rather than political freedom may be a bigger determinant of economic voting in developing democracies. Moreover, the threshold of political development needed for economic voting is lower than previously suggested by the literature. Conclusion. Economic voting is alive and well in developing democracies-even those with relatively low levels of economic and political development.

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Voting and the Macroeconomy

Cited by 22 publications

References 42 publications

Government Transfers and Political Support

Government Transfers and Political Support

Mecro‐Economic Voting: Local Information and Micro‐Perceptions of the Macro‐Economy

What Is and What May Never Be: Economic Voting in Developing Democracies

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