IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cmu/gsiawp/1990-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Model Of The Political Economy Of The United States

Author

Listed:
  • ALESINA, A.
  • LONDREGAN, J.A.
  • ROSENTHAL, H.

Abstract

We develop and test a model of joint determination of the rate of economic growth and the results of presidential and Congressional elections in the United States. In our model, economic agents and voters have rational expectations. Economic policy varies as a function of control of the White House and the two-party shares in Congress. Politics affects growth through unanticipated policy shifts following the outcome of presidential elections. The economy influences elections as voters use past realizations of growth to make rational inferences about the "competency" level of the incumbent administration. Elections are also influenced by voters using their midterm Congressional votes to moderate the policies of the incumbent administration. The theoretical model is used to generate a recursive system of equations in which the dependent variables are the growth rate and the vote shares in presidential and Congressional elections. The theory implies several restrictions on the equations. Tests of the restrictions generally support the model; however, the results support the traditional view of naive retrospective voting as well as the "rational" retrospective voting posited in the model.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Alesina, A. & Londregan, J.A. & Rosenthal, H., 1990. "A Model Of The Political Economy Of The United States," GSIA Working Papers 1990-27, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:cmu:gsiawp:1990-27
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alesina, Alberto & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1988. "Political Parties and the Business Cycle in the United States, 1948-1984," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 20(1), pages 63-82, February.
    2. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    3. Fair, Ray C, 1978. "The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for President," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 159-173, May.
    4. Alberto Alesina, 1988. "Macroeconomics and Politics," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3, pages 13-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Greenberg, Joseph, 1989. "Deriving strong and coalition-proof nash equilibria from an abstract system," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 195-202, October.
    6. Enelow,James M. & Hinich,Melvin J., 1984. "The Spatial Theory of Voting," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521275156, October.
    7. Beck, Nathaniel, 1982. "Parties, Administrations, and American Macroeconomic Outcomes," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(1), pages 83-93, March.
    8. Susan Lepper, 1974. "Voting behavior and aggregate policy targets," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 67-81, June.
    9. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1990. "Unit roots in real GNP: Do we know, and do we care?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-61, January.
    10. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1987. "Are Output Fluctuations Transitory?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 857-880.
    11. Kenneth Rogoff & Anne Sibert, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16.
    12. Romer, Christina D, 1989. "The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross National Product, 1869-1908," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 1-37, February.
    13. Alberto Alesina, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 651-678.
    14. Mankiw, N Gregory & Miron, Jeffrey A & Weil, David N, 1987. "The Adjustment of Expectations to a Change in Regime: A Study of the Founding of the Federal Reserve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 358-374, June.
    15. Balke, Nathan S & Gordon, Robert J, 1989. "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 38-92, February.
    16. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Whinston, Michael D., 1987. "Coalition-Proof Nash Equilibria II. Applications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 13-29, June.
    17. Kahn, C.M. & Mookherjee, D., 1990. "The Good The Bad, And The Ugly: Coalition Proof Equilibrium In Ganes With Infinite Strastegiy Spaces," University of Chicago - Economics Research Center 90-2, Chicago - Economics Research Center.
    18. Calvert, Randall L. & Ferejohn, John A., 1983. "Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(2), pages 407-419, June.
    19. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Peleg, Bezalel & Whinston, Michael D., 1987. "Coalition-Proof Nash Equilibria I. Concepts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-12, June.
    20. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February.
    21. William D. Nordhaus, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(2), pages 169-190.
    22. Cukierman, Alex & Meltzer, Allan H, 1986. "A Positive Theory of Discretionary Policy, the Cost of Democratic Government and the Benefits of a Constitution," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(3), pages 367-388, July.
    23. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    24. 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 473-491, June.
    25. Fischer, Stanley, 1977. "Long-Term Contracts, Rational Expectations, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 191-205, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    2. William D. Nordhaus, 1989. "Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(2), pages 1-68.
    3. Ganesh Manjhi & Meeta Keswani Mehra, 2019. "Dynamics of Political Budget Cycle," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 5(1), pages 135-158, March.
    4. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    5. Reichenvater, Arno, 2007. "Business Cycles, Political Incentives and the Macroeconomy: Comparison of Models," MPRA Paper 5527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Price, Simon, 1997. "Political Business Cycles and Macroeconomic Credibility: A Survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 92(3-4), pages 407-427, September.
    7. Alesina, Alberto & Stella, Andrea, 2010. "The Politics of Monetary Policy," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 18, pages 1001-1054, Elsevier.
    8. Kouvavas, Omiros, 2013. "Political Budget Cycles Revisited, the Case for Social Capital," MPRA Paper 57504, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Sep 2013.
    9. Cleomar Gomes da silva & Flavio V. Vieira, 2016. "Monetary policy decision making: the role of ideology, institutions and central bank independence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(4), pages 2051-2062.
    10. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.
    11. Juan Carlos Berganza, 2000. "Politicians, voters and electoral processes: an overview," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(3), pages 501-543, September.
    12. Gerard H. Kuper, 2018. "The powers that are: central bank independence in the Greenspan era," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 485-499, March.
    13. Shin‐Ichi Fukuda, 1992. "Why Does A Two‐Party System Exist?: A New Economic Explanation," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 277-288, November.
    14. Alberto Alesina, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 651-678.
    15. repec:dgr:rugsom:14020-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Kuper, Gerard & Veurink, Jan Hessel, 2014. "Central bank independence and political pressure in the Greenspan era," Research Report 14020-EEF, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    17. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Post-Print hal-01291401, HAL.
    18. 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.
    19. Lohmann, Susanne, 1997. "Partisan control of the money supply and decentralized appointment powers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 225-246, May.
    20. Vítor Castro & Rodrigo Martins, 2015. "Budget, expenditures composition and political manipulation: Evidence from Portugal," NIPE Working Papers 4/2015, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    21. Efthyvoulou, Georgios, 2011. "Political cycles under external economic constraints: Evidence from Cyprus," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 638-662.

    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:cmu:gsiawp:1990-27. 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: Steve Spear (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cmu.edu/tepper .

    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.