IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/judgdm/v13y2018i4p334-344_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting elections: Experts, polls, and fundamentals

Author

Listed:
  • Graefe, Andreas

Abstract

This study analyzes the relative accuracy of experts, polls, and the so-called ‘fundamentals’ in predicting the popular vote in the four U.S. presidential elections from 2004 to 2016. Although the majority (62%) of 452 expert forecasts correctly predicted the directional error of polls, the typical expert’s vote share forecast was 7% (of the error) less accurate than a simple polling average from the same day. The results further suggest that experts follow the polls and do not sufficiently harness information incorporated in the fundamentals. Combining expert forecasts and polls with a fundamentals-based reference class forecast reduced the error of experts and polls by 24% and 19%, respectively. The findings demonstrate the benefits of combining forecasts and the effectiveness of taking the outside view for debiasing expert judgment.

Suggested Citation

  • Graefe, Andreas, 2018. "Predicting elections: Experts, polls, and fundamentals," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 334-344, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:4:p:334-344_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500009219/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:4:p:334-344_3. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jdm .

    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.