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A New View of Political Accountability for Economic Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1985

Henry W. Chappell Jr.  and
William R. Keech
Henry W. Chappell Jr.
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
William R. Keech
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Extract

Most political support models imply that in evaluating economic performance, voters use a standard that would provide poor predictions of the future and leave the economy vulnerable to manipulation by vote-hungry politicians. Drawing on macroeconomic theory, we develop a simple standard of evaluation which encompasses a concern not only for current economic outcomes, but also for accurately assessed future consequences of current policies. We find that political support for the president can be explained as well by models that assume that voters use this sophisticated standard as by models that assume voter naivete.

Our analysis questions the wisdom of measures typically used to assess voter evaluation of economic performance in a variety of theoretical contexts. The results also help to explain the absence of convincing evidence that governments exploit voter ignorance in manipulating the economy.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 79 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 10 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

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