Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
June 1, 2005
Abstract:
Theories of economic voting argue that people who are feeling well off and who are optimistic about the future are likely to vote for the incumbent government’s return to power, whereas those suffering financially and pessimistic about the future are not. Many British cross-sectional analyses of voting patterns have produced results consistent with this argument. Those findings have been challenged, however, on the grounds that the economic evaluations cannot be considered exogenous: economic evaluations at one election may be conditioned by party choice at a previous election. This argument is tested using panel survey data on egocentric economic evaluations and party choice for two electoral cycles in Great Britain (1992-97 and 1997-2001) and found valid. These data provide virtually no evidence to sustain the economic voting theory and instead support the endogeneity case.
Published in
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 15 , p.129 -144
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13689880500064692
ISSN
17457289
Subjects
#512837