The compleat economic voter: New theory and British evidence

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 43, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 241-261

  Lewis Beck, Michael S ^a   Nadeau, Richard ^b   Foucault, Martial ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF IOWA   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84875173012     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123412000440     Document Type: Review

References (106)

1. Raymond Duch and Randy Stevenson, The Economic Vote: How Political and Economic Institutions Condition Election Results (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008);
2. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Mary Stegmaier, 'Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes', Annual Review of Political Science, 3 (2000), 183-219;
3. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Mary Stegmaier, 'Economic Models of the Vote', in Russell Dalton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 518-37;
4. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Mary Stegmaier, 'The Economic Vote in Transitional Democracies', Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties, 18 (2008), 303-23;
5. Helmut Norpoth, 'The Economy' in Laurence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris, eds, Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspectives (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1996), 299-318;
6. Peter Nannestad and Martin Paldam, 'The VP Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years', Public Choice, 79 (1994), 213-45.
7. For debate surrounding the first, see as opposing examples Christopher Anderson, 'The End of Economic Voting? Contingency Dilemmas and the Limits of Democratic Accountability', Annual Review of Political Scienc, 10 (2007), 271-96;
8. Paolo Bellucci and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, 'A Stable Popularity Function? Cross-National Analysis', European Journal of Political Research, 50 (2011), 190-211.
9. Geoffrey Evans and Robert Anderson, 'The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions', Journal of Politics, 68 (2006), 194-207;
10. and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Richard Nadeau and Angelo Elias, 'Economics, Party and the Vote: Causality Issues and Panel Data', American Journal of Political Science, 52 (2008), 84-95.
11. D. Roderick Kiewiet, Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: The Electoral Effects of Economic Issues (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983);
12. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Richard Nadeau, 'Obama and the Economy in 2008', Political Science & Politics, 42 (2009), 479-83.
13. Richard Nadeau, Martial Foucault and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, 'Patrimonial Economic Voting: Legislative Elections in France', West European Politics, 33 (2010), 1261-77.
14. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Richard Nadeau, 'Economic Voting Theory: Neglected Dimensions', Electoral Studies, 30 (2011), 288-94.
15. Lewis-Beck and Nadeau, 'Obama and the Economy in 2008'; and Lewis-Beck and Nadeau, 'Economic Voting Theory', on the 2008 US presidential election; Richard Nadeau, Martial Foucault and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, 'Assets and Risk: A Neglected Dimension of Economic Voting', French Politics, 9 (2011), 97-119;
16. Martial Foucault, Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, 'La persistance de l'effet patrimoine lors des elections presidentielles francaises', Revue franc aise de science politique, 61 (2011), 659-80,
17. Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Martin Paldam, 'Economic Voting: An Introduction', Electoral Studies, 19 (2000), 113-21.
18. Harold D. Clarke, David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart and Paul Whiteley, 'Valence Politics and Electoral Choice in Britain, 2010', Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 21 (2011), 237-53.
19. Jess Stein, ed., Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Edition (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 301.
20. Harold D. Clarke, David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart and Paul Whiteley, Political Choice in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
21. Donald E. Stokes, 'Spatial Models of Party Competition', American Political Science Review, 57 (1963), 368-77, p. 373.
22. David Butler and Donald E. Stokes, Political Change in Britain (New York: St. Martin's, 1969), p. 390.
23. Butler and Stokes, Political Change in Britain, p. 392.
24. Harold D. Clarke, David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart and Paul Whiteley, Performance Politics and the British Vote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
25. On the theoretical origins of these differences, see especially Morris P. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press 1981), pp. 6, 26);
26. and Donald R. Kinder and D. Roderick Kiewiet, 'Sociotropic Politics: The American Case', British Journal of Political Science, 11 (1981), 129-61.
27. Anthony Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957).
28. Stokes, 'Spatial Models of Party Competition', p. 373.
29. Mark Franklin, The Decline of Class Voting in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985);
30. Anthony Heath, Roger M. Jowell and John K. Curtice, How Britain Votes (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1985), p. 199;
31. Richard Rose and Ian McAllister, Voters Begin to Choose (London: Sage Publications, 1986);
32. Richard Rose and Ian McAllister, The Loyalties of Voters: A Lifetime Learning Model (London: Sage Publications, 1990);
33. Bo Sarlvik and Ivor Crewe, Decade of Dealignment: The Conservative Victory of 1970 and Electoral Trends in the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
34. Michael S. Lewis-Beck, William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth and Herbert F. Weisberg, The American Voter Revisited (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008), chap. 8.
35. Butler and Stokes, Political Change in Britain, pp. 188-9.
36. Butler and Stokes, Political Change in Britain, p. 177.
37. Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy.
38. D. Roderick Kiewiet, Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: The Electoral Effects of Economic Issues (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983), chap. 2.
39. Paul A. Abramson, John H. Aldrich and David W. Rohde, Change and Continuity in the 2000 Elections (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003), pp. 113-15;
40. William H. Flanagan and Nancy Zingale, Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 11th edn (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Press Quarterly, 2006), pp. 115-18.
41. Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008);
42. Jeffrey M. Stonecash, Class and Party in American Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000).
43. Benjamin I. Page and Lawrence R. Jacobs, Class War? What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p. 38.
44. The bibliography on Marxism has an almost paralysing vastness. Therefore, we suggest two simple points on the compass. First, Hobsbawm's brilliant edited volume on The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition (London: Verso, 2012));
45. Popper's unparalleled critique (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 2 (Hegel and Marx) (London and New York: Routledge, 1945)).
46. Lewis-Beck, Jacoby, Norpoth and Weisberg, The American Voter Revisited.
47. Lewis-Beck and Nadeau, 'Obama and the Economy in 2008', pp. 479-83.
48. Jed Donoghue, Bruce Tranter and Robert White, 'Homeownership, Shareownership and Coalition Policy', Journal of Australian Political Economy, 52 (2003), 58-82, p. 71.
49. Patrick Troy, 'Suburbs of Acquiescence, Suburbs of Protest', Housing Studies, 15 (2000), 717-38;
50. Ian McAllister, 'Housing Tenure and Party Choice in Australia, Britain and the United States', British Journal of Political Science, 14 (1984), 509-22.
51. Patrick Dunleavy, 'The Urban Basis of Political Alignment: Social Class, Domestic Property Ownership, and State Intervention in Consumption Processes', British Journal of Political Science, 9 (1979), 409-43;
52. Patrick Dunleavy and Christopher Husbands, British Democracy at the Crossroads (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985).
53. Jed Donoghue, Bruce Tranter and Robert White, 'Homeownership, Shareownership and Coalition Policy', Journal of Australian Political Economy, 52 (2003), 58-82.
54. Saunders, A Nation of Home Owners; Peter R. Saunders, 'Citizenship in a Liberal Society', in B. Turner, ed., Citizenship and Social Theory (London: Sage, 1993).
55. David E. Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1983 (London: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 296-7;
56. Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, Political Choice in Britain, Table 4.3, p. 98.
57. McAllister, 'Housing Tenure and Party Choice in Australia, Britain and the United States'; Nadeau, Foucault and Lewis-Beck, 'Patrimonial Economic Voting'; Troy, 'Suburbs of Acquiescence, Suburbs of Protest', pp. 717-38;
58. Anthony Heath, Geoffrey Evans, Julia Field and Sharon Witherspoon, Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964-1987 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991), chap. 8;
59. Peter Saunders, 'Privatization, State Ownership and Voting', British Journal of Political Science, 25 (1995), 131-7;
60. Donley T. Studlar, Ian McAllister and Alvaro Ascui, 'Privatization and the British Electorate: Microeconomic Policies, Macroeconomic Evaluations, and Party Support', American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 1077-101.
61. Monica Charlot, 'Un effet patrimoine?' in Monica Charlot, ed., L'Effet Thatcher (Paris: Economica, 1989), pp. 40, 42.
62. Lewis-Beck and Nadeau, 'Obama and the Economy in 2008', pp. 479-83.
63. Interestingly, they differ greatly from US preferences, where the majority of that electorate does not favour a progressive tax structure, in contrast to British electorate here; Lewis-Beck and Nadeau, 'Obama and the Economy in 2008'.
64. Anthony B. Atkinson and Emmanuel Saez, 'Top Incomes in the Long Run of History', in Anthony B. Atkinson and Thomas Piketty, eds, Top Incomes: A Global Perspective (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2009), chap. 13.
65. Anthony B. Atkinson, 'Top Incomes in the UK over the Twentieth Century', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 168 (2005), 325-43;
66. Anthony B. Atkinson, 'The Distribution of Top Incomes in the United Kingdom 1908-2000', in Anthony B. Atkinson and Thomas Piketty, eds, Top Incomes over the Twentieth Century: A Contrast between Continental European and English-Speaking Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
67. Francis Jones, Daniel Annan and Saef Shah, 'The Distribution of Household Income, 1977 to 2006/07', Economic and Labour Market Review, 2:12 (2008), 18-31.
68. James Banks, Richard Blundell and James P. Smith, 'Wealth Portfolios in the UK and the US', NBER Working Paper 9128 (2002).
69. Patrick Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).
70. Margo Berman, 'Examining Risk Attitudes', Complexity, 9:5 (2004), 25-30;
71. Ted To, 'Risk and Evolution', Economic Theory, 13 (1999), 329-43.
72. A good portion of these properties are mortgaged. However, as shall be see below in fn. 59, there are no significant differences in the vote choices of these respondents, compared to those who own their homes outright.
73. Shlomo Benartzi and Richard H. Thaler, 'Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle', Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110 (1995), 73-92;
74. Olof Dahlback, 'Saving and Risk Taking', Journal of Economic Psychology, 12 (1991), 479-500;
75. C. Huang and R. H. Litzenberger, Foundations for Financial Economics (New York: Elsevier Science, 1988). For a more detailed discussion of the theoretical argument behind this distinction, see Nadeau, Foucault and Lewis-Beck, 'Assets and Risk'.
76. These variables were rescaled between 0 and 1. See the appendix available online.
77. Frank Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (Boston, Mass.: Hart, Schaffner and Marx, 1921).
78. Margo Bergman, 'Examining Risk Attitudes', Complexity, 9:5 (2004), 25-30;
79. Ted To, 'Risk and Evolution', Economic Theory, 13 (1999), 329-43.
80. Luc Arrondel, 'Risk Management and Wealth Accumulation Behavior in France', Economics Letters, 74 (2002), 187-94;
81. Luc Arrondel and Hector Calvo Pardo. 'Les Francais sont-ils prudents? Patrimoine et risque sur les revenus des menages', PSE Working Papers 2007-16 (Paris: School of Economics, Ecole normale superieure, 2008).
82. Benartzi and Thaler, 'Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzl'; Dahlback, 'Saving and Risk Taking'; Huang and Litzenberger, Foundations for Financial Economics.
83. Alberto Alesina and Howard Rosenthal, Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995);
84. Carles Boix, 'Partisan Governments, the International Economy and Macroeconomic Policies in OECD Countries, 1964-93', World Politics, 53 (2000), 38-73.
85. Herbert McClosky and John Zaller, The American Ethos: Public Attitudes towards Capitalism and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
86. Angus Campbell, Philp E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1960);
87. Butler and Stokes, Political Change in Britain; Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, Political Choice in Britain; Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, Performance Politics and the British Voter.
88. Lewis-Beck, Jacoby, Norpoth and Weisberg, The American Voter Revisited, pp. 223-9.
89. Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, Political Choice in Britain, chap. 4.
90. Since the two variables are scaled to the same, 0-1 metric, the magnitude of their coefficients can be compared: 1.30/0.9051.44.
91. David Kaplan, Structural Equation Modeling: Foundations and Extensions (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000);
92. and Peter Kennedy, A Guide to Econometrics, 6th edn (New York: Wiley and Sons, 2008).
93. Lewis-Beck and Nadeau, 'Obama and the Economy in 2008'.
94. Michael Lewis-Beck, Richard Nadeau and Eric Belanger. French Presidential Elections (Basingtoke, Hants.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, forthcoming);
95. Nadeau, Foucault and Lewis-Beck, 'Assets and Risk'; Nadeau, Foucault and Lewis-Beck, 'Patrimonial Economic Voting'.
96. Donoghue, Tranter and White, 'Homeownership, Shareownership and Coalition Policy'; Troy, 'Suburbs of Acquiescence, Suburbs of Protest'.
97. Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, 'Valence Politics and Electoral Choice in Britain', Table 2.
98. Moreover, it does it parsimoniously, with only 12 independent variables, instead of 38 independent variables as required in the model by Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, 'Valence Politics and Electoral Choice in Britain', Table 2.
99. Using the equations of Table 4, column 1 and the Table 6, columns 1 and 2, compare the HRA coefficient without and with the egocentric variables included , respectively: Tory vote 5 1.00;
100. Labour vote5 21.60;
101. Libdem vote521.02 (all significant);
102. Tory vote51.00;
103. Labour vote5 21.70;
104. Libdem Vote 5 21.06 (all significant).
105. Other possible priorities to select were inflation, trade or growth; a reverse coding is used to get a positive sign for the Tory model.
106. Lewis-Beck and Nadeau. 'Obama and the Economy in 2008'.