IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v121y2004i3p413-430.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Party Polarization and the Business Cycle in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Edward López
  • Carlos Ramírez

Abstract

A large literature has studied the trend of greaterpolarization between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.This paper empirically examines the extent to which inflationand unemployment explain cyclical movements ofpolarization over time. An informal application of thestandard Downsian spatial competition model of partiesgenerates the following relationships, ceteris paribus: (1)inflation should be associated with policy convergence, (2)unemployment should be associated with polarization, (3) theeffect of unemployment on polarization should be larger inmagnitude than the effect of inflation on convergence, and (4)the effect of unemployment on polarization should be strongerin the House than in the Senate. We estimate the relationshipbetween vote records and business cycle conditions over the1947–1999 period using a GLS model with varying lags. Ourresults are broadly consistent with these business cyclehypotheses of polarization, though greater support is found inHouse data than in Senate data. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004

Suggested Citation

  • Edward López & Carlos Ramírez, 2004. "Party Polarization and the Business Cycle in the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 413-430, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:121:y:2004:i:3:p:413-430
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-004-1687-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-004-1687-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-004-1687-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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbs, Douglas A., 1977. "Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1487, December.
    2. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
    3. Grier, Kevin B & McGarrity, Joseph P, 1998. "The Effect of Macroeconomic Fluctuations on the Electoral Fortunes of House Incumbents," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 143-161, April.
    4. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    5. Mehmet Caner & Bruce E. Hansen, 2001. "Threshold Autoregression with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1555-1596, November.
    6. Charles W. Calomiris & Eugene N. White, 1994. "The Origins of Federal Deposit Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: The Regulated Economy: A Historical Approach to Political Economy, pages 145-188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. James J. Heckman & James M. Snyder, Jr., 1996. "Linear Probability Models of the Demand for Attributes with an Empirical Application to Estimating the Preferences of Legislators," NBER Working Papers 5785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Denzau, Arthur T. & Munger, Michael C., 1986. "Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 89-106, March.
    9. Clarke, Harold D. & Dutt, Nitish, 1991. "Measuring Value Change in Western Industrialized Societies: The Impact of Unemployment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(3), pages 905-920, September.
    10. Romer, Christina D, 1986. "Is the Stabilization of the Postwar Economy a Figment of the Data?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 314-334, June.
    11. Lee, Hsiu-Yun & Wu, Jyh-Lin, 2001. "Mean Reversion of Inflation Rates: Evidence from 13 OECD Countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 477-487, July.
    12. McCarty, Nolan & Poole, Keith T. & Rosenthal, Howard, 2001. "The Hunt for Party Discipline in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(3), pages 673-687, September.
    13. Groseclose, Tim & Levitt, Steven D. & Snyder, James M., 1999. "Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(1), pages 33-50, March.
    14. Cox, Gary, 2001. "Introduction to the Special Issue," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 189-191, January.
    15. Durr, Robert H., 1993. "What Moves Policy Sentiment?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 158-170, March.
    16. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    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. Stanley Winer & Michael Tofias & Bernard Grofman & John Aldrich, 2008. "Trending economic factors and the structure of Congress in the growth of government, 1930–2002," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 415-448, June.
    2. Edward López & Carlos Ramírez, 2008. "Mr. Smith and the economy: the influence of economic conditions on individual legislator voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 1-17, July.

    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. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    2. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    3. Stadelmann, David & Torrens, Gustavo, 2020. "Who is the ultimate boss of legislators: Voters, special interest groups or parties?," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Edward López & Carlos Ramírez, 2008. "Mr. Smith and the economy: the influence of economic conditions on individual legislator voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 1-17, July.
    5. Bellemare, Marc F. & Carnes, Nicholas, 2015. "Why do members of congress support agricultural protection?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 20-34.
    6. José Cruz, 2001. "An empirical application of the median voter model and of the interest group influence model to the Portuguese and Galician municipalities," ERSA conference papers ersa01p25, European Regional Science Association.
    7. Felgendreher, Simon & Lehmann, Paul, 2012. "The political economy of the peruvian urban water sector," UFZ Discussion Papers 18/2012, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    8. Mark Andreas Kayser, 2009. "Partisan Waves: International Business Cycles and Electoral Choice," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 950-970, October.
    9. Stavins, Robert & Keohane, Nathaniel & Revesz, Richard, 1997. "The Positive Political Economy of Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-25, Resources for the Future.
    10. Rodrigo M. S. Moita & Claudio Paiva, 2013. "Political Price Cycles in Regulated Industries: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 94-121, February.
    11. Randall S. Kroszner, 1999. "Is the Financial System Politically Independent? Perspectives on the Political Economy of Banking and Financial Regulation," CRSP working papers 492, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    12. Alessandro Olper & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Mass Media and Public Policy: Global Evidence from Agricultural Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(3), pages 413-436.
    13. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    14. Josef Brechler & Adam Geršl, 2014. "Political legislation cycle in the Czech Republic," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 137-153, June.
    15. Jason Matthew DeBacker, 2015. "Flip‐Flopping: Ideological Adjustment Costs In The United States Senate," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 108-128, January.
    16. Enriqueta Aragones, 1997. "Negativity Effect and the Emergence of Ideologies," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(2), pages 189-210, April.
    17. Francesca Acacia & Maria Cubel Sanchez, 2014. "Strategic voting and happiness," Chapters,in: A Handbook of Alternative Theories of Public Economics, chapter 7, pages 160-176 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Rausser, Gordon C. & de Gorter, Harry, 1988. "Endogenizing Policy In Models Of Agricultural Markets," 1988 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Knoxville, Tennessee 270460, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Vergne, Clémence, 2009. "Democracy, elections and allocation of public expenditures in developing countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 63-77, March.
    20. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:kap:pubcho:v:121:y:2004:i:3:p:413-430. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.