IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v53y2021i16p1840-1855.html

Elections, economic outcomes and policy choices in Canada: 1870 – 2015

Author

Listed:
  • J. Stephen Ferris
  • Marcel-Cristian Voia

Abstract

In this paper we examine the relationship between economic and electoral outcomes in Canada since Confederation (1867) and the role that economic policy has played in influencing this relationship. The results are consistent with voter concern for the overall performance of the economy in the incumbent’s governing term – the average growth rate of per capita GDP and average unemployment rate – while rejecting the presence of a political business cycle. Evidence of an effect of performance on the stability of the political party system (as measured by party vote volatility) is even stronger. The results also suggest that economic policy has only indirect effects on election outcomes, the most direct being the destabilizing influence of tax increases on party structure. The data also are consistent with the use of policy for countercyclical stability (primarily through spending and deficits), fiscal response to voter turnout, the growth of both spending and deficits under larger governing majorities and compliant monetary response to fiscal deficits.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Stephen Ferris & Marcel-Cristian Voia, 2021. "Elections, economic outcomes and policy choices in Canada: 1870 – 2015," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(16), pages 1840-1855, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:16:p:1840-1855
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2020.1853670
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2020.1853670
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2020.1853670?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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zekai Shen & Yiyang Jin & Yuanyuan Dong & Yazhou Liu, 2024. "Economic voting behavior: The peak‐end growth rule," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 1537-1571, November.

    More about this item

    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:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:16:p:1840-1855. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.