Judging Inflation and Unemployment: The Origins of Retrospective Evaluations

Conover, Pamela Johnston; Feldman, Stanley; Knight, Kathleen

doi:10.2307/2131168

Cited by 193 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…However, to tease apart these two contributors to economic evaluations, fine-grained financial data is necessary. 5 Additionally, many studies argue that voters are poorly informed, and thus subjective evaluations will be noisy (Bartels 1996;Conover, Feldman, and Knight 1986;Hellwig and Marinova 2015;Kramer 1983). Presumably, the level of noise should vary with political sophistication (Alt, Lassen, and Marshall 2016;Duch, Palmer, and Anderson 2000).…”

Section: Economic Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digging into the Pocketbook: Evidence on Economic Voting from Income Registry Data Matched to a Voter Survey

2017

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the political economy theory underlying it-assumes votes come from the pocketbook, and largely concludes that voters are, on aggregate, forward looking and highly capable of disciplining politicians for economic outcomes (Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson 1989, 2002.Some of these inconsistencies are due to imperfect data. Almost all of the evidence about the individuallevel effects of economic circumstances comes from survey questions that depend on recollections. Moreover, these recollections are elicited at only a single point in time: right before or right after an election (Lewis-Beck and Paldam 2000). This is potentially problematic, as partisan preferences, limited human memory, and other factors might color subjective assessments, making such survey data less than ideal (Wlezien, Franklin, and Twiggs 1997). On the other hand, macro data obscures individuals, leaving inferences subject to ecological biases (Kramer 1983). 1 Using improved data, we seek to paint a full picture of the economic voter and understand the roots of both pocketbook and sociotropic voting. In doing so, we contribute to three long-standing debates in the economic voting literature: pocketbook versus sociotropic voting, the effects of partisanship on economic views, and whether or not voters are myopic. Our data links a nationally-representative election survey to comprehensive personal financial information. This financial data provides respondents' household income-as verified by tax returns-each year for a complete fouryear term of a government. Merging this data with a detailed national election survey allows us to directly analyze the impact that an individual's financial history has on economic evaluations, vote choice, and political preferences. The results suggest greater commonality 1 Interestingly, Kramer argued that survey-based research, because it is cross-sectional, rather than time-series, is more likely to be subject to ecological fallacies. A more general perspective is that using data about polities to make claims about individuals, or individual data to make claims about polities, is subject to ecological biases. Andrew J. Healy, Mikael Persson, and Erik Snowberg between individual behavior and macro patterns than previously appreciated.In particular, we demonstrate that pocketbook considerations-that is, personal economic circumstances-are, in our data, at least as important as sociotropic ones. Traditional analyses of the survey data we use support the literature's conclusion that sociotropic motivations have the greatest influence on voters. However, when personal financial data is added to the analysis, those same voters are shown to actually vote equally on the basis of their pocketbooks. We then use our data to understand the sources of bias in economic evaluations. Both pocketbook and sociotropic evaluations include partisan bias. However, that bias is twice as large in sociotropic evaluations, perhaps leading to its prominence in predicting vote choice. Finally, counter to prior research, when focusing on pers...

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Section: Economic Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digging into the Pocketbook: Evidence on Economic Voting from Income Registry Data Matched to a Voter Survey

2017

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“…Similarly, Conover et al (1986) found lag times in the public's learning of economic trends, reacting more quickly to changes in unemployment than inflation.…”

Section: The Demand Side I: the Concerns Of Worker/consumer/votersmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The extent of that influence in the United States nonetheless remains a matter of interpretation and dispute. On the one hand, Conover et al (1986) argued that sociotropic voting may be more apparent than real, insofar as individuals' perceptions of national economic conditions may be heavily influenced by their own circumstances. On the other hand, Funk and Garcia-Monet responded to these claims with a study that found only weak evidence for such a connection.…”

Section: The Demand Side I: the Concerns Of Worker/consumer/votersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employment and the Political Economy of Trade

VanGrasstek

2011

OECD Trade Policy Papers

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“…Zaller (1992) asserts that it would be the most accessible information--information 'off the top of your head'--that would be retrieved from the memory to form a judgment. According to some, personal experiences and interpersonal communication are important sources of sociotropic economic perceptions (Mutz 1992;Conover et al 1986). Mutz (1992) further insists that personal experience is ''superior'' to all other sources of sociotropic economic perceptions.…”

Section: Economic Perceptions In Central and Eastern Europementioning

confidence: 99%

The Formation of Economic Perceptions in Post-Communist Countries of East Central Europe

Tverdova

2011

Polit Behav

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In the early transition phase in post-communist Europe, citizens' perceptions of the national economy appeared more favorable than objective economic indicators would suggest. With triple and quadruple digit annual inflation rates and a severe economic contraction, there was a substantial portion of the population in these countries who still thought that the national economy had been and would be improving. Thus, sociotropic economic perceptions in the wake of the democratic transformation appeared to be disconnected from the real economic situation. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it explores the link between objective economic indicators and public evaluations of the economy. Second, it investigates the microfoundations of economic perceptions. And finally, it tests a well-established proposition that political sophisticates are more accurate in their perceptions than their less informed counterparts. The findings of the study can be generalized to any political and economic system undergoing transition.Keywords Economic perceptions Á Post-communist Á Transition Á Economic voting Á Information shortcuts Á Accountability One of the grounding postulates of democratic theory is the principle of accountability. The theoretical operation of the accountability mechanism is quite simple: elected officials bear responsibility for their performance and receive reward or punishment from their constituency accordingly in the form of re-election or denial of a future political mandate. In reference to economic accountability, the mechanism presumes government responsibility for the state of the national economy, also known as economic voting (Lewis-Beck 1988; Page and Shapiro

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Judging Inflation and Unemployment: The Origins of Retrospective Evaluations

Cited by 193 publications

References 14 publications

Digging into the Pocketbook: Evidence on Economic Voting from Income Registry Data Matched to a Voter Survey

Digging into the Pocketbook: Evidence on Economic Voting from Income Registry Data Matched to a Voter Survey

Employment and the Political Economy of Trade

The Formation of Economic Perceptions in Post-Communist Countries of East Central Europe

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