With R. Michael Alvarez and Garrett Glasgow.
Most recent version: Nov. 13, 2002
Abstract:
Questions about the attribution of responsibility underlie many of the debates about the relationship between economic perceptions and political behavior. Several strategies have been proposed to study this topic, but perhaps the simplest is the use of survey questions that can determine how individuals link governmental economic policy and their economic perceptions. However, there are major concerns with this approach, including the ability of individuals to distinguish the effects of governmental economic policy and partisan rationalization. In this paper we examine the results of a survey question wording experiment to determine if survey questions that explicitly mention governmental economic policy may be useful. Using an Internet-based survey, we obtain responses to survey questions on economic perceptions that explicitly ask respondents to judge the relationship between government economic policy and changes in economic conditions and compare them to responses to questions that have no reference to government economic policy. Despite a high level of partisan rationalization, we find meaningful differences in the responses to these questions which suggest individuals do consider questions of responsibility when forming their economic perceptions. Further, utilizing survey questions on economic expectations that explicitly mention governmental economic policy reveal relationships between economic perceptions and political behavior not visible with questions that do not mention governmental economic policy --- perceptions of the influence of governmental economic policy on personal economic well-being have a significant impact on presidential approval while perceptions of overall personal economic well-being do not.