Analyses of the effects of election outcomes on the economy have been hampered by the problem that economic outcomes also influence elections. We sidestep these problems by analyzing movements in economic indicators caused by clearly exogenous changes in expectations about the likely winner during Election Day. Analyzing high frequency financial fluctuations following the release of flawed exit poll data on Election Day 2004, and then during the vote count, we find that markets anticipated higher equity prices, interest rates and oil prices and a stronger dollar under a Bush presidency than under Kerry. A similar Republican-Democrat differential was also observed for the 2000 Bush-Gore contest. Prediction market based analyses of all Presidential elections since 1880 also reveal a similar pattern of partisan impacts, suggesting that electing a Republican President raises equity valuations by 2 3 percent, and that since Reagan, Republican Presidents have tended to raise bond yields.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12073.
Length: Date of creation: Mar 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12073
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
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