POL 51 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Confounding, Contiguity, Election 2
Document Summary
Our current theory of presidential election outcomes. Iv: inc years in office dv: inc party vote share iv: econ performance. Economic performance is a cause of the inc party"s vote share. Better econ performance increases the inc party"s vote share, worse econ performance lowers it. People vote on the basis of issues they care about, and think the president and their party exert influence over. Voters care about econ performance; their perceived well being is influenced by it. Voters believe the president influences economic performance through policy. Therefore, econ performance will be a cause of the inc party"s vote. Econ (iv) causes perceived well being (dv) Perceived well being (iv) causes incvote (dv) Positive correlation: econ and incvote, controlling for perceived well being, q4 asked differently: consider two elections. In both elections, voters" perceived levels of well being are the same, but in election 1, econ is better than in election 2.
