Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy
  • Cited by 518
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2010
Print publication year:
1995
Online ISBN:
9780511720512
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720512
Series:
Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions
Subjects:
Area Studies, American Studies, American Government, Politics and Policy, Political Economy, Politics and International Relations, Comparative Politics
Information

Book description

This book develops an integrated approach to understanding the American economy and national elections. Economic policy is generally seen as the result of a compromise between the President and Congress. Because Democrats and Republicans usually maintain polarised preferences on policy, middle-of-the-road voters seek to balance the President by reinforcing in Congress the party not holding the White House. This balancing leads, always, to relatively moderate policies and, frequently, to divided government. The authors outline the rational partisan business cycle, where Republican administrations begin with recessions, and Democratic ones with expansions, and the midterm cycle, where the President's party loses votes in the midterm congressional election. The book argues that both cycles are the result of uncertainty about the outcome of presidential elections. Other topics covered include retrospective voting on the economy, coat-tails, and incumbency advantage.

Reviews

"...a challenging and important work...in this key area of interdisciplinary research, Alesina and Rosenthal's multi-faceted formal arguments and empirical tests are likely to set the standard for many years." Keith Krehbiel, Stanford University

"Alesina and Rosenthal bring together two major themes in the current study of American politics--divided government and the political business cycle. In so doing, they develop a theoretically innovative, statistically well-grounded model of the United States political economy. A strong round of applause is in order." Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Professor, the University of Iowa

"Alesina and Rosenthal have made what will surely be an enduring contribution....This book represents a genuine advance in the political business cycle literature....This book is accessible and holds value for both economists and political scientists. It should prove very useful to graduate students, but will also be stimulating to readers who are already familiar with the existing literature on political business cycles. This book would make a nice addition to a graduate seminar on applied political economy; any course which covers political business cycles would be incomplete absent this book as a required text." Jeffrey Milyo, Journal of Politics

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.