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Are Voters Rational? Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections

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Wolfers, Justin (Stanford U)

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Abstract

Standard agency theory suggests that rational voters will vote to re-elect politicians who deliver favorable outcomes. A second implication is that rational voters will not support a politician because of good outcomes unrelated to the politician's actions. Specifically, rational voters should try to filter signal from noise, both in order to avoid electing incompetent, but lucky politicians, and to maximize the link between their votes and optimal incentives. This paper provides insight into the information processing capacities of voters, by measuring the extent to which they irrationally reward state governors for economic fluctuations that are plausibly unrelated to gubernatorial actions. Simple tests of relative performance evaluation reveal that voters evaluate their state's economic performance relative to the national economy. However, these tests only provide evidence of rule-of-thumb performance filtering. More sophisticated tests reveal that voters in oil-producing states tend to re-elect incumbent governors during oil price rises, and vote them out of office when the oil price drops. Similarly, voters in pro-cyclical states are consistently fooled into re-electing incumbents during national booms, only to dump them during national recessions. Consistent with an emerging behavioral literature, this suggests that voters make systematic attribution errors and are best characterized as quasi-rational.

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Paper provided by Stanford University, Graduate School of Business in its series Research Papers with number 1730.

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Date of creation: Mar 2002
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Handle: RePEc:ecl:stabus:1730

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  1. Fair, Ray C, 1978. "The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for President," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 159-73, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Rogoff, Kenneth & Sibert, Anne, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2000. "Do CEOs Set Their Own Pay? The Ones Without Principals Do," NBER Working Papers 7604, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Robert Gibbons & Kevin Murphy, 1989. "Relative Performance Evaluation for Chief Executive Officers," Working Papers 628, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Rafael Di Tella & Raymond Fisman, 2002. "Are Politicians Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," NBER Working Papers 9165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Eric Brunner & Stephen L. Ross & Ebonya Washington, 2008. "Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals," Working papers 2008-18, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Michael Wallerstein, 2004. "Behavioral Economics and Political Economy," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 30, pages 37-48. [Downloadable!]
  4. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2006. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 12068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Eduardo Lora & Mauricio Olivera, 2005. "Repercusiones electorales del Consenso de Washington," RES Working Papers 4406, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  6. Daniel J. Benjamin & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Thin-Slice Forecasts of Gubernatorial Elections," NBER Working Papers 12660, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Ernesto Dal Bó & Pedro Dal Bó & Jason Snyder, 2007. "Political Dynasties," NBER Working Papers 13122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Keefer, Philip & Khemani, Stuti, 2003. "Democracy, public expenditures, and the poor," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3164, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  9. Eduardo Lora & Mauricio Olivera, 2005. "The Electoral Consequences of the Washington Consensus," RES Working Papers 4405, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  10. Gikas Hardouvelis & Dimitrios Thomakos, 2007. "Consumer Confidence and Elections," Working Papers 0003, University of Peloponnese, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  11. Andrew Leigh, 2004. "Does the World Economy Swing National Elections?," CEPR Discussion Papers 485, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. Sand-Zantman, W., 2003. "Economic Integration and Political Accountability," Cahiers du LASER (LASER Working Papers) 2003.09, LASER (Laboratoire de Science Economique de Richter), Faculty of Economics, University of Montpellier 1. [Downloadable!]
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