Economics and Elections

Does a government’s fate at the ballot box hinge on the state of the economy? Is it inflation, unemployment, or income that makes the difference? What triggers economic voting for or against the incumbent – do voters look at their pocketbooks, or at the national accounts? Do economic voters “punish” rulers for bad times, but fail to “reward” them for the good times? Are voter’s judgments based on past economic performance or future policy promises? These are some of the questions considered by Michael Lewis-Beck in this major cross-national study of the effect of economic conditions on voting behavior in the Western European democracies and the United States.