Economic Performance, Management Competence and the Outcome of the Next General Election

Abstract

The paper discusses the prospects for successfully forecasting the outcome of the next UK general election. It focuses on the problem of deciding which estimation period should be used in order to produce a particular set of political forecasts. A series of forecasting equations are developed based partly on different estimation periods and partly on different assumptions about which particular economic perceptions will prove decisive in British politics over the next year or so. Although the precise results of the various forecasting models differ, they all converge on the conclusion that the Conservatives are unlikely to recover sufficiently on the basis of purely economic considerations to win the next general election.