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Timing Is All: Elections and the Duration of United States Business Cycles

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  • Klein, Michael W

Abstract

This paper presents a new method for empirically testing predictions of various political business cycle theories by using duration analysis. The authors estimate the effect of presidential elections and their outcomes on the likelihood of the occurrence of business-cycle turning points in the United States for the period from 1855 to the present as well as for subperiods representing the post-World War I and post-World War II eras. They find significant evidence that political events increase the likelihood of the end of both expansions and contractions holding constant the effect of duration dependence. Copyright 1996 by Ohio State University Press.

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  • Klein, Michael W, 1996. "Timing Is All: Elections and the Duration of United States Business Cycles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(1), pages 84-101, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcb:jmoncb:v:28:y:1996:i:1:p:84-101
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    Cited by:

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    2. Akhmed Akhmedov & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2004. "Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1301-1338.
    3. Block, Steven A. & Vaaler, Paul M., 2004. "The price of democracy: sovereign risk ratings, bond spreads and political business cycles in developing countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 917-946, October.
    4. Chun‐Ping Chang & Yoonbai Kim & Yung‐hsiang Ying, 2009. "Economics and politics in the United States: a state‐level investigation," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 343-354.
    5. Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2001. "Five questions about business cycles," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 1-15.
    6. Panayiotis Diamandis & Anastassios Drakos & Argyrios Volis, 2007. "The impact of stock incremental information on the volatility of the Athens stock exchange," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 413-424.
    7. Michael Berlemann & Gunther Markwardt, 2007. "Unemployment and Inflation Consequences of Unexpected Election Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 1919-1945, December.
    8. Castro, Vítor, 2010. "The duration of economic expansions and recessions: More than duration dependence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 347-365, March.
    9. Jon Faust & John S. Irons, 1996. "Money, politics and the post-war business cycle," International Finance Discussion Papers 572, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Chun-Ping Chang & Yoonbai Kim & Yung-hsiang Ying, 2009. "Economics and politics in the United States: a state-level investigation," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 343-354.
    11. Berlemann, Michael & Markwardt, Gunther, 2003. "Partisan cycles and pre-electoral uncertainty," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 01/03, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.
    12. Fan Wang, 2018. "Elections, Political Control and Duration of Stock Market Cycles," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 201810, University of Kansas, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2018.
    13. Huong Dang, 2014. "How dimensions of national culture and institutional characteristics influence sovereign rating migration dynamics," ZenTra Working Papers in Transnational Studies 42 / 2014, ZenTra - Center for Transnational Studies.

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    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

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