The Economy and the Vote: Economic Conditions and Elections in Fifteen Countries

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Preface......Page 9
Introduction......Page 13
Plan of the Book......Page 18
Conceiving the Dependent Variable......Page 20
Model Specification and the Instability of Past Findings......Page 27
Asymmetric Effects and the Concept of Electoral Potential......Page 28
Taking Account of Party Characteristics......Page 30
Taking Account of Voter Characteristics......Page 31
Measuring the Economy......Page 33
Homogeneous versus Heterogeneous Effects of the Economy......Page 36
Features of an Improved Approach......Page 38
2 Party Choice as a Two-Stage Process......Page 43
Why Do We Not Use Logit Models?......Page 45
Our Alternative: Measuring Electoral Utilities......Page 49
A Design to Analyze Variation in Party Support......Page 52
Operationalizing the Two-Stage Model of Party Choice......Page 58
Advantages of Our Approach......Page 62
Hypotheses......Page 66
Data......Page 76
European Elections Studies......Page 77
Measuring the State of the Economy......Page 81
The Political and Economic Settings in 1989, 1994, and 1999......Page 83
A Caveat......Page 92
4 Effects of the Economy on Party Support......Page 94
Economic Voting and Government Status......Page 96
Time in Office and Control of Economic Ministries......Page 103
Economic Voting and the Effect of Party Size......Page 104
Economic Voting and Parties’ Ideological Positions......Page 109
Prospective Economic Voting?......Page 111
The “European Malaise”?......Page 114
System Characteristics and Economic Voting......Page 116
Clarity of Responsibility......Page 119
Other Systemic Characteristics......Page 123
Conclusions......Page 125
5 The Economic Voter......Page 129
Effects of the Economy Compared to Other Effects......Page 130
Relevant Distinctions among Voters......Page 135
Defining the Effects......Page 139
Results......Page 140
The Asymmetric Loss Curve......Page 146
Conclusion......Page 147
6 From Individual Preferences to Election Outcomes......Page 149
Estimating the Electoral Consequences of Economic Conditions......Page 151
Electoral Effects of Stylized Changes in Economic Growth......Page 154
Understanding the Luxembourg Case......Page 157
Unemployment and Inflation......Page 162
The Electoral Effects of Changes in All Indicators......Page 165
Asymmetries in the Effects of Improving and Deteriorating Economic Conditions......Page 170
Implications for Model Specification......Page 172
Asymmetry in Loss/Gain Function......Page 175
Discussion......Page 179
7 The Economy, Party Competition, and the Vote......Page 182
Unpacking the Dependent Variable......Page 183
Replications of Past Findings......Page 185
New Insights......Page 187
Additional Insights......Page 189
Implications for Individual-Level Studies of Economic Voting......Page 191
Implications for Aggregate-Level Studies of Economic Voting......Page 193
Political Implications of Our Study......Page 195
Rationality and Sophistication of the Economic Voter......Page 197
Economic Voting in Real Elections......Page 198
Discussion......Page 199
Toward a Revised Theory of Economic Voting......Page 201
Epilogue......Page 205
Appendix A......Page 213
The 1989 EES......Page 214
The 1999 EES......Page 215
Weighting......Page 216
Organization and Funding......Page 217
Appendix B......Page 219
References......Page 231
Index......Page 241