Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T10:24:23.743Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Objective and Subjective Economy and the Presidential Vote

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2012

Robert S. Erikson
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Christopher Wlezien
Affiliation:
Temple University

Extract

The importance of the economy in US presidential elections is well established. Voters reward or punish incumbent party candidates based on the state of the economy. The electorate focuses particularly on economic change, not the level of the economy per se, and pays more attention to late-arriving change than earlier change. On these points there is a good amount of scholarly agreement (see e.g., Erikson and Wlezien 1996; Hibbs 1987). There is less agreement, however, on what specific indicators matter to voters. Some scholars rely on income growth, others on GDP growth, and yet others on subjective perceptions (see Abramowitz 2008; Campbell 2008; Holbrook 1996b; also see Campbell and Garand 2000). In our work, we have used the index of leading economic indicators, a composite of ten variables, including the University of Michigan's index of consumer expectations, stock prices, and eight other objective indicators.

Type
Symposium: Forecasting the 2012 American National Elections
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramowitz, Alan. 2008. “Forecasting the 2008 Presidential Election with the Time-for-Change Model.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (4): 691–95.Google Scholar
Campbell, James E. 1996. Polls and Votes: The Trial Heat Presidential Election Forecasting Model, Uncertainty, and Political Campaigns.” American Politics Quarterly 24: 408–33.Google Scholar
Campbell, James E. 2008. The American Campaign: U.S. Presidential Campaigns and the National Vote, 2nd edition. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, James E., and Garand, James C. (eds.). 2000. Before the Vote: Forecasting American National Elections. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Wlezien, Christopher. 1994. “Forecasting the Presidential Vote, 1992.” The Political Methodologist 5: 1011.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Wlezien, Christopher. 1996. “Of Time and Presidential Election Forecasts.” PS: Political Science and Politics 29 (1): 3739.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Wlezien, Christopher. 2008a. “Leading Economic Indicators, the Polls, and the Presidential Vote.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (4): 703–07.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Wlezien, Christopher. 2008b. “The Economy and the Presidential Vote: What Leading Indicators Reveal Well in Advance.” International Journal of Forecasting 24: 218–26.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Wlezien, Christopher. 2012. The Timeline of Presidential Elections: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hibbs, Douglas A. Jr. 1987. The American Political Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holbrook, Thomas. 1996a. Do Campaigns Matter? Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Holbrook, Thomas. 1996b. “Reading the Political Tea Leaves: A Forecasting Model of Contemporary Presidential Elections.” American Politics Research 24: 506–19.Google Scholar
Wlezien, Christopher. 2001. “On Forecasting the Presidential Vote.” PS: Political Science and Politics 34: 2431.Google Scholar
Wlezien, Christopher, and Erikson, Robert S.. 1996. “Temporal Horizons and Presidential Election Forecasts.” American Politics Quarterly 24: 492–50.Google Scholar
Wlezien, Christopher, and Erikson, Robert S.. 2002. “The Timeline of Presidential Election Campaigns.” Journal of Politics 64: 969–93.Google Scholar
Wlezien, Christopher, and Erikson, Robert S.. 2004. “The Fundamentals, the Polls, and the Presidential Vote.” PS: Political Science and Politics 37: 747–51.Google Scholar