The American Political Economy: Macroeconomics and Electoral Politics in the United States
The American Political Economy: Macroeconomics and Electoral Politics in the United States
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美国政治经济学：美国的宏观经济学和选举政治
DOI：
10.1080/00213624.1988.11504829
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发表时间：
1988
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
W. Brown
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
W. Brown
瑞典哥德堡国家科诺米斯卡研究所的书评 909 政治科学家认为，政治商业周期并不是美国经济的一贯特征，政策制定者确实对选民的愿望做出了反应。希布斯通过对民意调查结果和宏观经济变量的统计分析得出了这一结论以及其他几个有趣的结论。不幸的是，希布斯的方法论、非线性回归和双变量选择模型——可能会减少这本重要著作的读者群。希布斯通过评估通货膨胀和失业的分配效应来开始他的分析。当他发现失业对低收入群体的影响大于高收入群体时，这并不奇怪。更具争议性的是他的发现，即通货膨胀对实体经济或收入分配几乎没有直接影响；如果说有什么不同的话，那就是对富人的伤害比对穷人的伤害更大。他表示，通货膨胀唯一严重的成本是通过故意衰退来对抗通货膨胀的间接成本，这对低收入群体的影响大于高收入群体。从表面上看，这些结果似乎与选民的偏好不一致：大多数调查显示，公众对通货膨胀的担忧持续存在，只有当失业率接近7%或8%的衰退水平时，失业率才会成为一个政治问题。通货膨胀和失业对收入分配的影响解释了为什么民主党和共和党的相对政策重点有所不同。由于民主党选区主要是工人阶级，因此优先考虑解决失业问题。共和党对通胀的关注体现了其利益集团的愿望。希布斯指出，民主党执政期间失业率较低，而共和党执政期间通胀较低，他认为这表明政治家奉行最符合选民最佳利益的政策。尽管存在一些政治操纵商业周期的案例——1972年的尼克松，也许还有1984年的里根——希布斯并不认为政治商业周期是美国经济的共同特征。他通过构建一系列模型来测试宏观经济状况在全国选举之前是否持续改善而得出这一结论。各个回归变量（失业率、国民生产总值增长、货币和财政政策变量）的系数与政治商业周期假设一致，但通常在统计上并不显着。这导致希布斯得出结论：“选举驱动的经济表现和政策周期一直是美国政治经济的一个显着特征，这一观点并未得到这些结果的有力支持”（第 263 页）。这可能是一个判断。正如作者所认识到的，
Book Reviews 909 litical scientist at the Nationale Konomiska Institutionen, Goteberg, Sweden, contends that political business cycles have not been a consistent feature of the US economy and that policymakers do respond to the desires of the electorate. Hibbs reaches this and several other interesting conclusions with statistical analyses of opinion poll results and macroeconomic variables. Unfortunately, Hibbs's methodologynonlinear regression and bivariate choice models-may reduce the readership of this important book. Hibbs begins his analysis' by assessing the distributional effects of inflation and unemployment. It is not surprising when he finds that unemployment affects lower income groups more than upper income groups. More controversial will be his finding that inflation has very little direct effect on the real economy or income distribution; if anything, it hurts the rich more than the poor. The only serious costs of inflation, he shows, are the indirect costs of fighting inflation with intentional recessions, which affect lower income groups more than upper income groups. On the surface, these results seem inconsistent with voter preferences: Most surveys show pu1,> lic concern about inflation to be persistent and that unemployment becomes a political issue only when it approaches recessionary levels of 7 or 8 percent. The income distribution effects of inflation and unemployment explain why Democrats and Republicans differ in their relative policy priorities. Since the Democratic constituency is primarily the working class, priority is given to fighting unemployment. The Republican focus on inflation is an expression of the desires oftlieir interest group. Noting that unemployment has been lower under the Democrats, while inflation has been lower under the Republicans, Hibbs contends that this is an indication that politicians pursue policies in the best interest of their constituents.While there have been some cases of political manipulation of the business cycle-Nixon in 1972 and perhaps Reagan in 1984-Hibbs does not believe that political business cycles have been a common feature of the US economy. He reaches this conclusion by constructing a series of models to test whether macroeconomic conditions have consistently improved before national elections. The coefficients on the individual regressors-unemployment, GNP growth, monetary and fiscal policy variables-have signs consistent with the political business cycle hypothesis, but generally are not statistically significant. This leads Hibbs to conclude that," the idea that electorally motivated economic performance and policy cycles have been a pronounced feature of American political economy is not strongly supported by these results"(p. 263). This may be a judgment call. As the author recognizes,