Reversing the Causal Arrow: The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions in the 2000–2004 U.S. Presidential Election Cycle

摘要: Many economic voting models assume that individual voters’ reactions to incumbents are strongly conditioned by their perceptions of the performance macroeconomy. However, direction causality between and political preferences is unclear: can be a consequence incumbent support rather than an influence on it. We develop latter thesis examining dynamic relationship retrospective several measures preferences—approval, partisanship, vote—in 2000–2004 U.S. presidential election cycle using ANES 2000-2002-2004 panel study estimate structural equation model extensions Anderson Hsiao estimator for data. Our findings confirm conventional wisdom misrepresents partisanship: consistently robustly preferences. Individuals’ percepti...