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Political Parties and the Business Cycle in the United States, 1948-1984

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Author Info
Alberto Alesina
Jeffrey Sachs

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Abstract

This paper tests the existence and the extent of a politically induced business cycle in the U.S. in the post-World War II period. The cycle described in this paper is different from the traditional "political business cycle" of Nordhaus. It is based on a systematic difference between the monetary policies of the two parties in a model with labor contracts. From an explicit optimization problem we derive a system of equations for output and money growth. Then we successfully test the non-linear restriction imposed by the theory on the parameters of the system of equations. We cannot reject the hypothesis that money growth has been systematically different under the two types of administration and that this difference contributes to explain output fluctuations.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 1940.

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Date of creation: May 1986
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1940

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Barro, Robert J, 1978. "Unanticipated Money, Output, and the Price Level in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(4), pages 549-80, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Nordhaus, William D, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(2), pages 169-90, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Abrams, Richard K & Froyen, Richard & Waud, Roger N, 1980. "Monetary Policy Reaction Functions, Consistent Expectations, and the Burns Era," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 12(1), pages 30-42, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Alesina, Alberto, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 651-78, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-91, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Stigler, George J, 1973. "General Economic Conditions and National Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 160-67, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. R. Kraeussl & A. Lucas & D. Rijsbergen & P.J. van der Sluis & E. Vrugt, 2008. "Washington meets Wall Street: A Closer Examination of the Presidential Cycle Puzzle," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-101/2, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  2. Raghuram G. Rajan, 2005. "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?," Working Papers id:248, esocialsciences.com. [Downloadable!]
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