Economics, Party, and the Vote: Causality Issues and Panel Data

Authors: Lewis-Beck, Michael S.¹; Nadeau, Richard²; Elias, Angelo²

Source: American Journal of Political Science, Volume 52, Number 1, January 2008 , pp. 84-95(12)

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Abstract:

Conventional wisdom argues that national economic perceptions generally have an important impact on the vote choice in democracies. Recently, a revisionist view has arisen, contending that this link, regularly observed in election surveys, is mostly spurious. According to the argument, partisanship distorts economic perception, thereby substantially exaggerating the real vote connection. These causality issues have not been much investigated empirically, despite their critical importance. Utilizing primarily American, and secondarily British and Canadian, election panel surveys, we confront directly questions of the time dynamic and independent variable exogeneity. We find, after all, economics clearly matters for the vote. Indeed, once these causality concerns are properly taken into account, the impact of economic perceptions emerges as larger than previously thought. As well, the actual impact of partisanship is clearly reduced.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00300.x

Affiliations: 1: University of Iowa 2: University of Montreal

Publication date: 2008-01-01