Presidents and the U.S. Economy: An Econometric Exploration
@article{Blinder2014PresidentsAT, title={Presidents and the U.S. Economy: An Econometric Exploration}, author={Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson}, journal={ERN: Positive Analysis of Policy-Making \& Implementation (Topic)}, year={2014} }
The US economy has performed better when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather than a Republican, almost regardless of how one measures performance. For many measures, including real GDP growth (our focus), the performance gap is large and significant. This paper asks why. The answer is not found in technical time series matters nor in systematically more expansionary monetary or fiscal policy under Democrats. Rather, it appears that the Democratic edge stems mainly from more…
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