Collaborative Research: The Effect of Changes in Wages on Economic Perceptions and Voting: An Improved Micro-Level Foundation for Economic Voting

这项研究检验了这样一种理论，即选民会从经济的不同方面来决定现任政府管理经济的能力，以及选民的自身利益，他们根据这种计算来投票，而不是考虑经济的总体增长率或选民的个人财务状况。调查人员假设，选民关注的是从事类似职业的人的工资变化或就业水平的变化；教育水平相近的人；以及与选民在同一行业的人来决定经济表现如何符合选民的利益。因此，研究人员提供了一个个人层面的行为模型，与经济表现对投票选择的重要性的总体观察相一致。调查人员认为，选民是自利的，他们对现任者的评价是基于现任者如何管理经济以满足选民的自利。因此，选民会对政府的经济增长水平和现任政府的分配影响都有偏好。克莱默（Kramer, 1983）的论点被重复了一遍，即选民把自己的钱袋作为衡量现任者能力或现任者分配倾向的标准是低效的。选民的钱袋是生命周期效应、努力和其他特殊因素的函数——这将使政府引起的收入变化相形见绌。通过指出选民关注总体宏观经济将掩盖所有经济内部的分配差异，这一论点得到了扩展。这将包括基于技能的差异、基于教育的差异、部门差异和区域差异。因此，得出的结论是，选民可以用来确定现任政府如何管理经济以使选民的自身利益受益的最佳策略是观察与选民具有相关经济特征的个人的经济表现。调查人员使用人口普查局的当前人口调查离职轮换档案来估计不同选民群体的工资。通过消费者态度和行为调查和全国选举研究，考察了这些客观经济措施的影响：选民对经济的评价；选民通过测量总统支持率的调查工具对现任总统的评价；和选民的投票选择通过全国选举研究。通过使用比以前更丰富的个人经济环境信息的数据集，并将其与研究人员提供的理论相结合，该项目能够推进经济投票微观基础的最新技术。

This research tests the theory that voters look at distinct aspects of the economy to determine how well the incumbent administration manages the economy the benefit the voters' self-interests, and they vote on that calculation, rather than consideration of the overall growth rate of the economy or of the voter's personal financial condition. The investigators postulate that voters look at changes in the wages, or chnges int he level of employment, of: people in similar occupations; people with similar levels of education; and people in the same industry as the voter to determine how well the economy performs in the voter's interest. Thus, the investigators offer a model of individual-level behavior consistent with aggregate observations of the importance on economic performance on vote choice. The investigators argue that voters are self-interested, and that they evaluate the incumbent based o how well the incumbent manages the economy towards the voters' self-interest. Thus, voters would have preferences over both the level of economic growth credited to the administration, and to the distributive impact of the incumbent. Kramer's argument (1983) is repeated that it would be inefficient for voters to look at their own pocketbook as a measure of the incumbent's competence or the incumbents' distributve tendencies. The pocketbook of the voter is a function of life-cycle effects, effort, and other idiosyncratic factors -- which would dwarf government-induced change in income. The argument is extended by pointing out that for voters to look at the aggregate macro-economy would mask all intra-economy, distributive variation. This would include skill-based variation, education-based variation, sectoral variation, and regional variation. Thus, it is concluded that the best strategy, which a voter could employ to determine how well the incumbent administration manages the economy to benefit the voter's self-interest, is to look at the economic performance of individuals who share relevant economic characteristics with the voter. The investigators estimate wages of different groups of voters using the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation files. The impact of these objective economic measures is examined with respect to: voters' evaluations of the economy through the Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior and the National Election Study; voters' evaluations of the incumbent through survey instruments measuring presidential popularity; and voters' vote choices through the National Election Study. By using a dataset with richer information on the economic circumstances of individuals than used previously, and combining this with the theory offered by the investigators, the project is able to advance the state of the art of the micro-foundations of economic voting.