Pocketsize plus and massive minus. Explaining the asymmetry between reward and punishment in economic voting

Keywords
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Issue Date
2014-08-21
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The effect of the economy on voting is well-established: incumbent governments are electorally rewarded for economic growth and electorally punished for economic decline. Generally, this relation is implicitly assumed to be symmetric, but case studies are increasingly discovering its asymmetry: the reward for economic success is dwarfed by the punishment for economic malaise, and assuming linearity leads to false conclusions. In addition to corroborating the findings of asymmetry in a cross-country analysis of 22 European countries, this study investigates macro and micro mechanisms explaining why the difference between punishment and reward is greater in some situations than in others. For this purpose, this study uses multilevel logistic regression and instrumental variables probit models to estimate robust results. Three approaches are tested to account for this variation. First, the effects of economic growth, unemployment and inflation are modeled separately instead of assumed to be merely different aspects of the same concept of ‘the economy’; this way, differential effects of economic trends are explored. The results tentatively indicate that the asymmetry between punishment and reward is greater for inflation than for growth and unemployment, but a lack of country level variance prevents proper testing. Second, the salience of these issues varies between and within countries, and more salient issues may generate a greater difference between punishment and reward. Modeling salience of inflation, unemployment and economic growth separately yields no results, but greater economic salience in general does increase the difference, although results are not particularly robust. Third, greater political affinity not only increases the strength of economic voting, but also reduces the difference. Lower scores on indicators of news consumption, political interest and education contribute to a greater asymmetry. In conclusion, economic voting is on average asymmetrical, but the greater one’s political affinity, the more strongly the omnipresent punishment is complemented by rewards for good performance.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen
Specialisation