Friday, November 18, 2011

Do economic indicators predict presidential elections?


Nate Silver does an in depth analysis of economic factors wrt presidential elections. The conclusion? Economic indicators are not very good predictors of election results.
The broader point — and one thing this evidence is fairly definitive upon — is that the rate of change is what counts. Americans will give a fair amount of credit to a president in an economy that is still below its full productive capacity provided that it seems to be getting better.

Read the whole post (long and detailed) at The New York Times
Which Economic Indicators Best Predict Presidential Elections?

2 comments:

Joe C said...

Who cares?

Tom Hickey said...

@ Jeo C

Well, politics affects policy and therefore political economy. Elections matter.

Right now, many are claiming that Obama is toast because of the economy, especially high unemployment. Nate shows that this is not necessarily the case.