Abstract
Economics has long been thought to influence vote choice. Unfortunately, the temporal pattern of economic evaluations is little studied. Using the Senate elections of 1956 through 1988, this research presents an assessment of the role of retrospective and prospective evaluations on vote choice. The findings of this research support the argument that people look to the future when making the vote decision. Consequently, this research also argues that the simple reward/punishment view of voting does not reflect the richness of economic voting. Finally, a causal model is constructed to demonstrate that these prospective evaluations exert an influence on vote choice independent of both party identification and retrospective evaluations.
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Lockerbie, B. The temporal pattern of economic evaluations and vote choice in Senate elections. Public Choice 69, 279–294 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123865
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123865