IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecopol/v19y2007i2p135-167.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Partisan Politics, Interest Rates And The Stock Market: Evidence From American And British Returns In The Twentieth Century

Author

Listed:
  • BUMBA MUKHERJEE
  • DAVID LEBLANG

Abstract

We examine the relationship between government partisanship, interest rates and the mean and volatility of stock prices in the United States and United Kingdom. We suggest that traders in the stock market rationally expect higher (lower) post‐electoral interest rates during the incumbency of the left‐wing (right‐wing) party – Democrats and Labor (Republican and Conservative) – and in election years when they expect the left‐wing (right‐wing) party to win elections. We hypothesize that expectations of higher (lower) interest rates decrease (increase) the mean and volatility of stock prices during the actual incumbency or even anticipation of a left‐wing (right‐wing) party holding the office of the chief executive. Results from empirical models estimated on data from U.S. and U.K. markets over most of the twentieth century statistically support our claims.

Suggested Citation

  • Bumba Mukherjee & David Leblang, 2007. "Partisan Politics, Interest Rates And The Stock Market: Evidence From American And British Returns In The Twentieth Century," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 135-167, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:19:y:2007:i:2:p:135-167
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.2007.00306.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2007.00306.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2007.00306.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C. Herron & James Lavin & Donald Cram & Jay Silver, 1999. "Measurement of Political Effects in the United States Economy: A Study of the 1992 Presidential Election," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 51-81, March.
    2. Hibbs, Douglas A., 1977. "Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1487, December.
    3. Clark, William Roberts & Hallerberg, Mark, 2000. "Mobile Capital, Domestic Institutions, and Electorally Induced Monetary and Fiscal Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 323-346, June.
    4. David Leblang & Bumba Mukherjee, 2005. "Government Partisanship, Elections, and the Stock Market: Examining American and British Stock Returns, 1930–2000," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 780-802, October.
    5. Foster, F Douglas & Viswanathan, S, 1995. "Can Speculative Trading Explain the Volume-Volatility Relation?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(4), pages 379-396, October.
    6. John Y. Campbell & Albert S. Kyle, 1993. "Smart Money, Noise Trading and Stock Price Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34.
    7. Gemmill, Gordon, 1992. "Political risk and market efficiency: Tests based in British stock and options markets in the 1987 election," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 211-231, February.
    8. Leblang, David & Mukherjee, Bumba, 2004. "Presidential Elections and the Stock Market: Comparing Markov-Switching and Fractionally Integrated GARCH Models of Volatility," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 296-322, July.
    9. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 1995. "What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 634-647, September.
    10. Bernhard,William & Leblang,David, 2006. "Democratic Processes and Financial Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521861229.
    11. Gartner, Manfred & Wellershoff, Klaus W., 1995. "Is there an election cycle in American stock returns?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 387-410.
    12. Schwert, G William, 1990. "Stock Returns and Real Activity: A Century of Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1237-1257, September.
    13. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    14. Hafer, R W & Hein, Scott E & MacDonald, S Scott, 1992. "Market and Survey Forecasts of the Three-Month Treasury-Bill Rate," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(1), pages 123-138, January.
    15. Bernhard,William & Leblang,David, 2006. "Democratic Processes and Financial Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521678384.
    16. Pedro Santa‐Clara & Rossen Valkanov, 2003. "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1841-1872, October.
    17. Riley, William B. & Luksetich, William A., 1980. "The Market Prefers Republicans: Myth or Reality," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 541-560, September.
    18. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini & Gerald D. Cohen, 1997. "Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262510944, December.
    19. John R. Freeman & Jude C. Hays & Helmut Stix, 1999. "Democracy and Markets: The Case of Exchange Rates," Working Papers 39, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    20. Gallant, A Ronald & Rossi, Peter E & Tauchen, George, 1992. "Stock Prices and Volume," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 199-242.
    21. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. K. Arin & Alexander Molchanov & Otto Reich, 2013. "Politics, stock markets, and model uncertainty," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 23-38, August.
    2. Imai, Masami & Shelton, Cameron A., 2011. "Elections and political risk: New evidence from the 2008 Taiwanese Presidential Election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 837-849, August.
    3. Sebastián Nieto Parra & Javier Santiso, 2008. "Wall Street and Elections in Latin American Emerging Economies," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 272, OECD Publishing.
    4. Ghalke, Avinash & Sensarma, Rudra & Chakraborty, Sandip & Kakani, Ram Kumar, 2023. "Stock markets and economic uncertainty: Roles of legislative sessions and coalition strength," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    5. Grossman, Richard S. & Imai, Masami, 2009. "Japan's return to gold: Turning points in the value of the yen during the 1920s," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 314-323, July.
    6. Leilane de Freitas Rocha Cambara & Roberto Meurer, 2023. "News sentiment and foreign portfolio investment in Brazil," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 3332-3348, July.
    7. Stephen Weymouth & J. Lawrence Broz, 2013. "Government Partisanship and Property Rights: Cross-Country Firm-Level Evidence," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 229-256, July.
    8. Masami Imai & Cameron A. Shelton, 2010. "Elections and Political Risk: New Evidence from Political Prediction Markets in Taiwan," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2010-001, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael M. Bechtel & Roland F‹Ss, 2010. "Capitalizing on Partisan Politics? The Political Economy of Sector-Specific Redistribution in Germany," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(2-3), pages 203-235, March.
    2. Civilize, Sireethorn & Wongchoti, Udomsak & Young, Martin, 2015. "Military regimes and stock market performance," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 76-95.
    3. Roland Füss & Michael Bechtel, 2008. "Partisan politics and stock market performance: The effect of expected government partisanship on stock returns in the 2002 German federal election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 131-150, June.
    4. Nathan Jensen, 2007. "International institutions and market expectations: Stock price responses to the WTO ruling on the 2002 U.S. steel tariffs," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 261-280, September.
    5. Bülent Köksal & Ahmet Çalışkan, 2012. "Political Business Cycles and Partisan Politics: Evidence from a Developing Economy," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 182-199, July.
    6. Bialkowski, Jedrzej & Gottschalk, Katrin & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2008. "Stock market volatility around national elections," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1941-1953, September.
    7. Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2016. "Is there a link between politics and stock returns? A literature survey," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 15-23.
    8. Jorge Hargrave Gonçalves Da Silva, 2014. "Partisan Politics And Country Risk: Evidence From The 2002 Brazilian Presidential Election," Anais do XL Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 40th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 041, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    9. K. Arin & Alexander Molchanov & Otto Reich, 2013. "Politics, stock markets, and model uncertainty," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 23-38, August.
    10. Carvalho, Augusto & Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2018. "State-controlled companies and political risk: Evidence from the 2014 Brazilian election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 66-78.
    11. Oliver Pamp, 2008. "Partisan Preferences and Political Institutions: Explaining Fiscal Retrenchment in the European Union," European Political Economy Review, European Political Economy Infrastructure Consortium, vol. 8(Spring), pages 4-39.
    12. Ľuboš Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2020. "Political Cycles and Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(11), pages 4011-4045.
    13. Coulomb, Renaud & Sangnier, Marc, 2014. "The impact of political majorities on firm value: Do electoral promises or friendship connections matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 158-170.
    14. Caporale, Barbara & Caporale, Tony, 2008. "Political risk and the expectations hypothesis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 178-180, August.
    15. Aliyu, Shehu Usman Rano, 2020. "What have we learnt from modelling stock returns in Nigeria: Higgledy-piggledy?," MPRA Paper 110382, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Jun 2021.
    16. IRSHAD Hira, 2017. "Relationship Among Political Instability, Stock Market Returns And Stock Market Volatility," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 12(2), pages 70-99, August.
    17. Goodell, John W. & Vähämaa, Sami, 2013. "US presidential elections and implied volatility: The role of political uncertainty," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1108-1117.
    18. Wong, Wing-Keung & McAleer, Michael, 2009. "Mapping the Presidential Election Cycle in US stock markets," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 79(11), pages 3267-3277.
    19. Joseph T. Ornstein & Jude C. Hays & Robert J. Franzese, 2022. "The interest premium for left government: Regression‐discontinuity estimates," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 429-443, July.
    20. Canes-Wrone, Brandice & Ponce de Leon, Christian & Thieme, Sebastian, 2022. "Electoral Cycles, Investment, and Institutional Constraints in Developing Democracies," IAST Working Papers 22-129, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:19:y:2007:i:2:p:135-167. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0954-1985 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.