Economic Models of Voting
Title
Economic Models of Voting
Author
Anson, Ian G.
Hellwig, Timothy
Research Area
Social Institutions
Topic
Government Systems
Abstract
The economic vote provides a widely available tool for gauging electoral accountability. Yet in many cases, this search for electoral accountability appears elusive. A large literature has yielded conflicting and unstable empirical results. While there appears to be an association between the economy and citizens' voting behavior, we are unsure of its foundation. Do citizens reflect on the performance of the economy when choosing between candidates in democratic elections? What determines the existence and size of the economic vote: individual attributes, the wider politico‐economic context, or messages received from trusted elites? Scholars have unearthed some answers by turning outward to consider context, theorizing the cross‐national, individual‐level, and temporal conditions under which economic voting is likely to be strongest. In addition, more recently, researchers have turned inward to reassess the mechanism that drives the link between economic performance and voting behavior. Future scholarship must continue to interrogate core theoretical questions in an effort to better understand how citizens' subjective economic evaluations are reflected in their decisions as voters.