In this paper we examine the impact of macroeconomic conditions on federal electoral performance in twentieth century Australia. We find that the electorate penalises a government for high inflation and high unemployment relative to trend. Real GDP growth and real wage growth were not found to have a systematic relationship with incumbent vote share at the federal level. We also examine the voteshare of the federal incumbent in three electorates: the safe Liberal seat of Kooyong, the safe Labor seat of Melbourne Ports, and the swinging seat of Latrobe. We find some evidence that unemployment affects electoral outcomes in the swinging seat, but no macroeconomic variables affect outcomes in the safe seats.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Length: 15 pages Date of creation: 1999 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:699
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne, 5th Floor, Economics and Commerce Building, Victoria, 3010, Australia Phone: +61 3 8344 5289 Fax: +61 3 8344 6899 Email: Web page: http://www.economics.unimelb.edu.au More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Colemann Leong).