Economic Perceptions, Presidential Approval, and Causality

Abstract

Citizens process economic information in ways that confirm their prior political beliefs. We therefore see stronger effects of presidential approval on economic perceptions than vice versa. Yet as economic conditions worsen, voters become heavily exposed to negative economic information and more likely to experience conflicting political and economic considerations. As conditions improve, identities and evaluations fall back into sync and political attitudes become more useful as an identity-confirming shortcut. I expect that the effect of economic perceptions on presidential approval grows stronger as economic conditions worsen and the effect of presidential approval on economic perceptions grows stronger as conditions improve. Using panel data from four American National Election Studies, I apply simultaneous equation extensions of the Anderson–Hsiao estimator to test the relationship between economic and political attitudes. Results show that the effect of economic perceptions on presidential approval was substantially stronger during the Great Recession than during the previous three panel studies.