IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v141y2009i1p151-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bread and the attrition of power: Economic events and German election results

Author

Listed:
  • Irem Batool
  • Gernot Sieg

Abstract

Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income. Each percentage point of per capita real disposable income growth sustained over the legislative term yielded approximately two percentage points of votes in Germany. No other economic variables add value or significantly perturb the coefficients of our model. However, attrition of power reduced the vote share in election years 1961, 1994 and 1998.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Irem Batool & Gernot Sieg, 2009. "Bread and the attrition of power: Economic events and German election results," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 151-165, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:141:y:2009:i:1:p:151-165
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-009-9443-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-009-9443-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-009-9443-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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Estrella, Arturo & Mishkin, Frederic S., 1997. "The predictive power of the term structure of interest rates in Europe and the United States: Implications for the European Central Bank," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1375-1401, July.
    2. Sieg, Gernot, 2010. "Grandfather rights in the market for airport slots," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 29-37, January.
    3. Ray C. Fair, 1996. "Econometrics and Presidential Elections," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 89-102, Summer.
    4. Frey BrunoS. & Garbers Hermann, 1972. "Der Einfluß wirtschaftlicher Variabler auf die Popularität der Regierung — eine empirische Analyse," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 186(4), pages 281-295, February.
    5. Nannestad, Peter & Paldam, Martin, 1994. "The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 79(3-4), pages 213-245, June.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Stephen E. Haynes & Joe A. Stone, 1994. "Why Did Economic Models Falsely Predict A Bush Landslide In 1992?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(2), pages 123-130, April.
    8. Cameron, David R., 1978. "The Expansion of the Public Economy: A Comparative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1243-1261, December.
    9. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 1974. "Ökonometrische Untersuchungen des Einflusses der Wirtschaftslage auf die Popularität der Parteien," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 110(III), pages 409-445, September.
    10. Douglas Hibbs, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1), pages 149-180, July.
    11. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    12. Schwert, G William, 1990. "Stock Returns and Real Activity: A Century of Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1237-1257, September.
    13. Fama, Eugene F, 1990. "Stock Returns, Expected Returns, and Real Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1089-1108, September.
    14. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    15. Douglas Hibbs, 2008. "Implications of the ‘bread and peace’ model for the 2008 US presidential election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 1-10, October.
    16. Cusack, Thomas R., 1999. "The Shaping of Popular Satisfaction with Government and Regime Performance in Germany," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(4), pages 641-672, September.
    17. Geys, Benny & Vermeir, Jan, 2008. "The political cost of taxation: new evidence from German popularity ratings [Besteuerung und Popularität von Politikern: Neue Ergebnisse für die Deutsche Bundesregierung 1978-2003]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2008-06, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    18. Hibbs Jr., Douglas A., 2004. "Voting and the Macroeconomy," Working Papers in Economics 144, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 08 Apr 2006.
    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. Mario Mechtel & Niklas Potrafke, 2013. "Electoral cycles in active labor market policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 181-194, July.
    2. Sieg, Gernot, 2010. "Grandfather rights in the market for airport slots," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 29-37, January.
    3. Gernot Sieg & Irem Batool, 2012. "Pakistan, Politics and Political Business Cycles," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 51(2), pages 153-166.
    4. Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Is German domestic social policy politically controversial?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 393-418, December.
    5. Gürtler, Marc & Sieg, Gernot, 2006. "Crunch time: The optimal policy to avoid the "Announcement Effect" when terminating a subsidy," Working Papers FW24V2, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Finance.
    6. Rothbauer, Julia & Sieg, Gernot, 2010. "Quality standards for passenger trains: Political majorities and environmental costs," Economics Department Working Paper Series 8, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Economics Department.
    7. Sören Enkelmann, 2014. "Government popularity and the economy: first evidence from German microdata," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 999-1017, May.
    8. Marc Gürtler & Gernot Sieg, 2010. "Crunch Time: A Policy to Avoid the ‘Announcement Effect’ when Terminating a Subsidy," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(1), pages 25-36, February.
    9. Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political cycles and economic performance in OECD countries: empirical evidence from 1951–2006," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 155-179, January.
    10. Soeren Enkelmann, 2013. "Government Popularity and the Economy First Evidence from German Micro Data," Working Paper Series in Economics 274, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    11. Sieg Gernot & Stegemann Ulrike, 2010. "Strategic Debt Management within the Stability and Growth Pact," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 61(3), pages 225-240, December.

    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. 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.
    2. Geys, Benny & Vermeir, Jan, 2008. "The political cost of taxation: new evidence from German popularity ratings [Besteuerung und Popularität von Politikern: Neue Ergebnisse für die Deutsche Bundesregierung 1978-2003]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2008-06, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Panopoulou, Ekaterini, 2009. "Financial variables and euro area growth: A non-parametric causality analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1414-1419, November.
    4. Christis Hassapis, 2003. "Financial variables and real activity in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 421-442, May.
    5. David G. McMillan, 2021. "Predicting GDP growth with stock and bond markets: Do they contain different information?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 3651-3675, July.
    6. McMillan, David G., 2021. "When and why do stock and bond markets predict US economic growth?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 331-343.
    7. Benny Geys & Jan Vermeir, 2008. "Taxation and presidential approval: separate effects from tax burden and tax structure turbulence?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 301-317, June.
    8. Ekaterini Panopoulou, 2006. "The predictive content of financial variables: Evidence from the euro area," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp178, IIIS.
    9. Oral Erdogan & Paul Bennett & Cenktan Ozyildirim, 2015. "Recession Prediction Using Yield Curve and Stock Market Liquidity Deviation Measures," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(1), pages 407-422.
    10. Johannes A. Skjeltorp & Bernt Arne Ødegaard, 2009. "The information content of market liquidity: An empirical analysis of liquidity at the Oslo Stock Exchange?," Working Paper 2009/26, Norges Bank.
    11. Valentino Larcinese, 2007. "Voting over Redistribution and the Size of the Welfare State: The Role of Turnout," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 55(3), pages 568-585, October.
    12. Panopoulou, Ekaterini, 2007. "Predictive financial models of the euro area: A new evaluation test," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 695-705.
    13. Michael M. Bechtel & Jens Hainmueller, 2011. "How Lasting Is Voter Gratitude? An Analysis of the Short‐ and Long‐Term Electoral Returns to Beneficial Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 852-868, October.
    14. Dopke, Jorg & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2006. "Politics and the stock market: Evidence from Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 925-943, December.
    15. Fabio ALESSANDRINI, 2003. "Do Financial Variables Provide Information about the Swiss Business Cycle ?," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 03.02, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    16. Chiarella Carl & Semmler Willi & Mittnik Stefan & Zhu Peiyuan, 2002. "Stock Market, Interest Rate and Output: A Model and Estimation for US Time Series Data," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-39, April.
    17. Bakshi, Gurdip & Panayotov, George & Skoulakis, Georgios, 2011. "Improving the predictability of real economic activity and asset returns with forward variances inferred from option portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 475-495, June.
    18. Mauro, Paolo, 2003. "Stock returns and output growth in emerging and advanced economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 129-153, June.
    19. Peter Woehrmann, "undated". "A dynamic model of the financial�real interaction as a model selection criterion for nonparametric stock market prediction," IEW - Working Papers 226, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Evgenidis, Anastasios & Papadamou, Stephanos & Siriopoulos, Costas, 2020. "The yield spread's ability to forecast economic activity: What have we learned after 30 years of studies?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 221-232.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bread and Peace model; Elections; Vote share; Real per capita disposable income growth; E6; H11; P16;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:141:y:2009:i:1:p:151-165. 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.