Economic Changes and Government Popularity in Scandinavian Countries

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 26, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 583-595

  Mattila, Mikko ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI   (Finland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84937275527     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123400007614     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. For a good review, see 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), 213-15.
2. See, for example, Dennis C. Mueller, Public Choice II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 282-4; Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1990), pp. 13-31.
3. See, for example, Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan Katz, ‘Panel Methods for Cross-National Data’ (paper delivered at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Political Methodology Group, Tallahassee, 1993); Harold D. Clarke, Nitish Dutt and Allan Kornberg, ‘The Political Economy of Attitudes toward Polity and Society in Western European Democracies’, Journal of Politics, 55 (1993), 998-1021; G. Bingham, Powell and Guy D. Whitten, ‘A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context’, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), 391-414; Motoshi Suzuki, ‘Domestic Determinants of Inflation’, European Journal of Political Research, 23 (1993), 245-259.
4. Jan-Erik Lane, Tuomo Martikainen, Palle Svensson, Gunnar Vogt and Henry Valen, ‘Scandinavian Exeptionalism Reconsidered’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 5 (1993), 195-230, at pp. 195-7.
5. Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 90-3.
6. Henrik J. Madsen, ‘Electoral Outcomes and Macro-Economic Policies: The Scandinavian Cases’, in Paul Whiteley, ed., Models of Political Economy (London: Sage, 1980).
7. Lars Jonung and Eskil Wadensjo, ‘The Effect of Unemployment, Inflation and Real Income Growth on Government Popularity in Sweden’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 83 (1979), 343-53.
8. Douglas A. Hibbs Jr and Henrik J. Madsen, ‘The Impact of Economic Performance on Electoral Support in Sweden, 1967-1978’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 4 (1981), 33-50.
9. Johan A. Lybeck ‘A Simultaneous Model of Politico-Economic Interaction in Sweden, 1970-82, European Journal of Political Research, 13 (1985), 135-51.
10. Arthur H. Miller and Ola Listhaug, ‘Economic Effects on the Vote in Norway’, Political Behavior, 6 (1984), 301-19.
11. Rune Jorgen S0rensen, ‘Macroeconomic Policy and Government Popularity in Norway, 1963-1986’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 10 (1987), 301-21.
12. Martin Paldam and Friedrich Schneider, ‘The Macro-Aspects of Government and Opposition Popularity in Denmark 1957-78’, Nationatykonomisk Tidsskrift, 118 (1980), 149-70.
13. Peter Nannestad and Martin Paldam, ‘Sammenhaengen mellem samfundsokonomi, privat0konomi og tilslutningen til regeringspartierne. Nogle metodeproblemer, Markus’ model og en analyse af tilslutningen til KVR-regeringen 1988-1990’, Politico, 25 (1993), 189-206.
14. Mikko Manila, ‘Taloudellisten tekijbiden vaikutus hallituspuolueiden suosioon Suomessa 1983-1993’, Politiikka, 36 (1994), 146-54.
15. Sorensen, ‘Macroeconomic Policy and Government Popularity in Norway’, p. 318.
16. J. A. Stimson, ‘Regression in Space and in Time: A Statistical Essay’, American Journal of Political Science, 29 (1985), 914-47; Cheng Hsiao, Analysis of Panel Data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Lois W. Sayrs, Pooled Time Series Analysis (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1989).
17. Gary King, Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 181-2.
18. Two time series are said to be co-integrated if there is a linear combination of them that is integrated of a lower order than the individual series (Robert F. Engle and Clive W. J. Granger, ‘Co-Integration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation and Testing’, Econometrica, 55 (1987), 251-76).
19. Error correction models are gaining popularity in political science. See, for example, Robert Durr, ‘What
20. Moves Policy Sentiment?’ American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 158-70; Harold D. Clarke and Marianne C. Stewart, ‘Prospections, Retrospections and Rationality: The “Bankers” Model of Presidential Approval Reconsidered’, American Journal of Political Science, (1994), 1104-123.
21. Mueller, Public Choice II, pp. 277-86.
22. William D. Nordhaus, ‘Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2 (1988), 1-69, pp. 32-4.
23. Richard A. Brody, Assessing the President: The Media. Elite Opinion, and Public Support (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 83-90.
24. The number of these dummies differs slightly from the number of governments in Table 1 because the changes in the level of support that are due to minor changes in the composition of the coalition must also be controlled.
25. Nathaniel Beck ‘Estimating Dynamic Models is Not Merely a Matter of Technique’, Political Methodology, II (1985), 71-89; Nathaniel Beck, ‘The Economy and Presidential Approval: An Information Theoretic Perspective’, in Helmut Norpoth, Michael Lewis-Beck and Jean-Dominique Lafay, eds, Economics and Politics: The Calculus of Support (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991); Beck and Katz, ‘Panel Methods for Cross-National Data’.
26. See, for example, Barbara Headrick and David J. Lanoue, ‘Attention, Asymmetry, and Government Popularity in Britain’, Western Political Quarterly, 44 (1991), 67-86; Peter Nannestad and Martin Paldam, ‘Velfaerdsstat, mistillid og styrbarhed’, 0konomi & Politik, 67 (1994), 14-35. Theoretically, it seems to be quite acceptable to use changes in the case of inflation, because people can adjust to stable inflation. However, in the case of unemployment, the choice between undifferenced and differenced figures is theoretically not so clear. The differenced series is used here because ‘a quick glance’ shows that the unemployment figures were not stationary during the ten-year period.
27. Simon Price and David Sanders, ‘Modelling Government Popularity in Postwar Britain: A Methodological Example’, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), 317-34.
28. William H. Greene, Econometric Analysis, 2nd edn (New York: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 444-59.
29. Nathaniel Beck, Jonathan N. Katz, R. Michael Alvarez, Geoffrey Garrett and Peter Lange, ‘Government Partisanship, Labor Organization, and Macroeconomic Performance: A Corrigendum’, American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 9 4 5-8 ; Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan N. Katz, ‘When GLS Fails: Alternative Estimation of Cross-National Panel and Related Models’ (unpublished. Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, 1994).
30. All the models also include dummy variables for each government coalition to control for different levels of popularity resulting from larger support bases. Because these coefficients have no meaningful substantial interpretation they are not reported in the table.
31. Greene, Econometric Analysis, pp. 426-8 ; Beck and Katz, ‘Panel Methods for Cross-National Data’, pp. 7-8. The results indicate that autocorrelation is not a problem in any of the models.
32. Greene, Econometric Analysis, pp. 363-5.
33. Jan Kmenta, Elements of Econometrics (Singapore: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1990), pp. 437-42; James Jaccard, Roberty Turrisi and Choi K. Wan, Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990), pp. 30-1
34. See, for example, Leonard Lardaro, Applied Econometrics (New York: Harper-Collins, 1993), p. 446; or Damodar Gujarati, Basic Econometrics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), pp. 338-9.
35. Powell and Whitten, ‘A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting’.
36. Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections, pp. 108-9.
37. Mueller, Public Choice II, pp. 291-4; Suzuki, ‘Domestic Determinants of Inflation’.
38. Powell and Whitten, ‘A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting’, pp. 404-5.
39. Howard S. Bloom and Douglas H. Price, ‘Voter Response to Short-Run Economic Conditions: The Asymmetric Effect of Prosperity and Recession’, American Political Science Review, 69 (1975), 1240-54.
40. William Clagget, ‘A Reexamination of the Asymmetry Hypothesis: Economic Expansions, Contractions and Congressional Elections’, Western Political Quarterly, 39 (1986), 621-33.
41. Headrick and Lanoue, ‘Attention, Asymmetry, and Government Popularity in Britain’.
42. Headrick and Lanoue, ‘Attention, Asymmetry, and Government Popularity in Britain’.