The Compleat Economic Voter: New Evidence from the UK

Abstract:     
While economic voting has been much studied, almost all the work has been based on the classic reward-punishment model, which treats the economy as a valence issue. The economic is, indeed, a valence issue, but it is much more than that. In the work at hand, we explore two other dimensions of economic voting – position and patrimony. Through investigation of a 2010 UK election survey containing relevant measures on these three dimensions, we estimate their impact on vote intention, in the context of a carefully specified system of equations. According to the evidence reported, each dimension of economic voting has its own independent effect. Moreover, together, they reveal a “compleat” economic voter, who wields considerable power over electoral choice in Britain. This result, while new, confirms and extends recent work on US and French elections.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 32

working papers series