Thursday, May 19, 2016

Timothy Taylor — Ray Fair: The Economy is Tilting Republican

Fair's equation to predict the 2016 presidential election isVP = 42.39 + .667*G - .690*P + 0.968*Z

On the left-hand side of the equation, VP is the Democratic share of the presidential vote. Given that a Democrat is in office, a legacy of economic growth should tend to favor the Democratic candidate, while inflation would tend to work against the Democrat. On the right-hand side, G is the growth rate of real per capita GDP in the first 3 quarters of the election year (at an annual rate); P is the growth rate of the GDP deflator (a measure of inflation based on everything in the GDP, rather than just on consumer spending as in the better-known Consumer Price Index); and Z is the number of quarters in the first 15 quarters of the second Obama administration in which the growth rate of real per capita GDP is greater than 3.2 percent at an annual rate.…
Convertible Economist
Ray Fair: The Economy is Tilting Republican
Timothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

1 comment:

Roger Erickson said...

You know, our electorate may be tilting toward "neither of the above."

There is reality beyond Dem/GOP polarity, believe it or not.