andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-659 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: A few years ago Larry Bartels presented this graph, a version of which latter appeared in his book Unequal Democracy: Larry looked at the data in a number of ways, and the evidence seemed convincing that, at least in the short term, the Democrats were better than Republicans for the economy. This is consistent with Democrats’ general policies of lowering unemployment, as compared to Republicans lowering inflation, and, by comparing first-term to second-term presidents, he found that the result couldn’t simply be explained as a rebound or alternation pattern. The question then arose, why have the Republicans won so many elections? Why aren’t the Democrats consistently dominating? Non-economic issues are part of the story, of course, but lots of evidence shows the economy to be a key concern for voters, so it’s still hard to see how, with a pattern such as shown above, the Republicans could keep winning. Larry had some explanations, largely having to do with timing: under De
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1 This is consistent with Democrats’ general policies of lowering unemployment, as compared to Republicans lowering inflation, and, by comparing first-term to second-term presidents, he found that the result couldn’t simply be explained as a rebound or alternation pattern. [sent-2, score-0.316]
2 Non-economic issues are part of the story, of course, but lots of evidence shows the economy to be a key concern for voters, so it’s still hard to see how, with a pattern such as shown above, the Republicans could keep winning. [sent-5, score-0.324]
3 Larry had some explanations, largely having to do with timing: under Democratic presidents the economy tended to improve at the beginning of the four-year term, while gains under Republicans tended to occur in years 3 and 4–just in time for the next campaign! [sent-6, score-0.797]
4 Here’s Campbell: Previous estimates did not properly take into account the lagged effects of the economy. [sent-9, score-0.214]
5 Once lagged economic effects are taken into account, party differences in economic performance are shown to be the effects of economic conditions inherited from the previous president and not the consequence of real policy differences. [sent-10, score-0.973]
6 Specifically, the economy was in recession when Republican presidents became responsible for the economy in each of the four post-1948 transitions from Democratic to Republican presidents. [sent-11, score-0.896]
7 This was not the case for the transitions from Republicans to Democrats. [sent-12, score-0.094]
8 When economic conditions leading into a year are taken into account, there are no presidential party differences with respect to growth, unemployment, or income inequality. [sent-13, score-0.41]
9 For example, using the quarterly change in GDP measure, the economy was in free fall in Fall 2008 but in recovery during the third and fourth quarters of 2009, so this counts as Obama coming in with a strong economy. [sent-14, score-0.324]
10 (Campbell emphasizes that he is following the lead of Bartels and counting a president’s effect on the economy to not begin until year 2. [sent-15, score-0.319]
11 Bartels’s claims are not robust to changes in specifications, but Campbell’s conclusions aren’t completely stable either. [sent-17, score-0.104]
12 Campbell finds one thing if he controls for previous year’s GNP growth but something else if he controls only for GNP growth in the 3rd and 4th quarter of the previous year. [sent-18, score-0.478]
13 What struck me the most about Campbell’s paper was ultimately how consistent its findings are with Bartels’s claims. [sent-21, score-0.091]
14 This perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise, given that they’re working with the same data, but it did surprise me because their political conclusions are so different. [sent-22, score-0.099]
15 Here’s the quick summary, which (I think) both Bartels and Campbell would agree with: - On average, the economy did a lot better under Democratic than Republican presidents in the first two years of the term. [sent-23, score-0.594]
16 - On average, the economy did slightly better under Republican than Democratic presidents in years 3 and 4. [sent-24, score-0.594]
17 But the two stories have different implications regarding the finding of Hibbs, Rosenstone, and others that economic performance in the last years of a presidential term predicts election outcomes. [sent-26, score-0.425]
18 Under the Bartels story, voters are myopically chasing short-term trends, whereas in Campbell’s version, voters are correctly picking up on the second derivative (that is, the trend in the change of the GNP from beginning to end of the term). [sent-27, score-0.395]
19 Consider everyone’s favorite example: Reagan’s first term, when the economy collapsed and then boomed. [sent-28, score-0.32]
20 ) returned Reagan by a landslide in 1984: were they suckers for following a short-term trend or were they savvy judges of the second derivative? [sent-30, score-0.103]
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