Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:24:05.481Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Of Honeymoons and Economic Performance: Comment on Hibbs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 1982

William R. Keech
William R. Keech*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Professor Hibbs's article presents an ingenious model wherein political support of the government depends on “cumulative discounted relative performance.” Specifically, “the worse (better) the performance of the prior government, the higher (lower) will be the initial support of the new government… (G)overnments following bad acts by the opposition are likely to enjoy greater initial support than governments following good acts.”

This is a reasonable hypothesis, and it may well be correct. However, Hibbs offers no evidence of its correctness other than the overall performance of his model, and he reports no consideration, let alone rejection, of alternative hypotheses. Instead he assumes that the discounted past performance affects the new government's support with the opposite sign but with the same slope. Pursuit of Hibbs's illustrative example shows that the assumption is far from trivial, and that it produces some startling results.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , June 1982 , pp. 280 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hibbs, Douglas A. Jr. 1982. A dynamic analysis of economic influences on political support for British governments among occupational groups. American Political Science Review 76:259–79.10.1017/S0003055400186976CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kernell, Samuel. 1980. Strategy and ideology: the politics of unemployment and inflation in modern capitalist democracies. Revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.