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Hyperbolic memory discounting and the political business cycle

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  • Findley, T. Scott

Abstract

The vintage political business cycle framework of Nordhaus (1975) represents the idea that the macroeconomic business cycle is manipulated opportunistically by an incumbent government to achieve re-election. A key assumption in this prototypical framework is that voters discount their memories about unemployment and inflation at a constant rate. Yet starting with Ebbinghaus (1885) and Jost (1897), a large body of research in psychology documents an empirical regularity that has come to be known as Jost's Second Law of Forgetting—individuals discount recent memories at a higher rate compared to the rate at which they discount older memories. I find that incorporating this insight from psychology (i.e., hyperbolic memory discounting) into the benchmark framework moderates the amplitude of the predicted political business cycle.

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  • Findley, T. Scott, 2015. "Hyperbolic memory discounting and the political business cycle," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 345-359.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:40:y:2015:i:pb:p:345-359
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.08.002
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    3. Sharlywest Uwabor Eboigbe & Innocent Okwuosa, 2018. "Test of Linkage between Governance Style and National Economic Indices," International Journal of Financial Research, International Journal of Financial Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 9(1), pages 226-238, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hyperbolic memory discounting; Jost's Second Law of Forgetting; Political business cycle; Inflation; Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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