Dimensions of Economic Voting

• In Event: New Developments in Economic Voting

Abstract

Economic voting has received a lot of attention in political science research (Kinder and Kiewiet 1981; Erikson, MacKuen and Stimson 2002; Fiorina 1981). Despite this, the state of the art is theoretically underdeveloped, and standard empirical analyses rests on imperfect data (Healy, Persson and Snowberg 2017). One main problem, that we focus on in this paper, is that the research is concentrated on an oversimplified conception of “the economy”. Our goal is to disaggregate different aspects of economic development and examine how these different aspects relate to voting behaviour. We argue that what is usually considered a "good economy" is not necessarily good for everyone, and that voters differ in their exposure to the macroeconomy. For example, low-income citizens may benefit from low unemployment and high inflation, while high-income citizens benefit from high unemployment and low inflation. Surprisingly, the heterogeneous response of voters to various economic indicators has received little attention from empirical scholars.

According to the conventional wisdom in economic voting research, voters reward incumbent parties when the economy is good and punish them when the economy is bad. Contrary to what standard theory assumes, people in different social classes benefit differently from the economy. For example, Hibbs (1977) argues that low-income citizens benefit from low unemployment and high inflation, while high-income citizens benefit from high unemployment and low inflation. Surprisingly, the heterogeneous response of voters to various economic indicators has received little attention from empirical scholars. This overlooks the fact that different aspects of economic development can benefit different groups of citizens. Consequently, the impact of the "economy" on voter turnout varies across different dimensions of the economy and across different socioeconomic groups.

In this paper, we examine how different groups of citizens evaluate three aspects of the economy - growth, unemployment, and inflation - and how these aspects are related to voting behaviour both retrospectively and prospectively. We analyse this question using three types of data sources. First, we use descriptive data from OECD countries to assess how dimensions of the economy are related to the choice of incumbent parties and the vote share of left-wing parties. Second, we use survey data from national election studies in which we asked voters directly how they weighed growth, unemployment, and inflation in their voting decisions. Third, we present a series of survey experiments in which we ask citizens to evaluate patterns of economic development during their time in government and manipulate levels of growth, unemployment, and inflation. Using these data, we attempt to paint a comprehensive picture of the economic dimensions and understand the heterogeneous effects on different groups of citizens.

Authors

• Love Christensen, Aarhus University

• Jana Schwenk, Gothenburg University

• Mikael Persson, University of Gothenburg