![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsPeter challenged me in my post about parties and economic outcomes: So what exactly is your theory to explain how any of these presidents deserve any credit OR blame for what happened to the economy during their terms in office?
I don't have one. I'm not sure I need one at this time.
Looking through the economics boards discussing the Dunne & Henwood paper, among the noise I see a large number of very talented trained economists wrestling with this very question. Some dismiss it, or invert the relationship, or point out that both are consequential on other factors emerging from the marketplace. Others embrace it and are trying to explain it. I'll wait and see.
Your question reminded me of another longitudinal study from another world: parenting. There have long been huge studies of what makes a successful parent, and what those parents do to have children reach adulthood healthy, whole, and ready to take on the world, as opposed to those parents whose children spiral down into poverty and self-destruction. Two classic outcomes were "Have a lot of books in the home," and "Have at least three sit-down dinners every week with your children." The problem with these outcomes is that, when they were introduced into families that previouly had not been doing them, there was little discernable change in their children's outcome. (No meaningful change at all for the books; a small uptick for meals, but nothing close to the outcomes for families that were already doing so naturally.)
The sad conclusion many social scientists have reached is that succesful parenting is not a matter of what you do, it is a matter of who you are. Sit-down meals and bookshelf-lined walls are merely indicators of other, nebulous values those parents have. Those values drive a parent's daily actions and reactions. They become thousands of little gestures, meaningful acts, and attentive moments that, over the child's formative years, add up to "being a successful parent." If you don't have those values then making the gross gestures isn't going to do a whole lot.
I suspect therefore that the answer lies in the "thousand small levers" theory of administration. It isn't a few grand things that the Dems do or the Reps fail to do that makes the Dems seemingly more successful at running our economy than the Reps. It's that the Democratic administrations have had values different from those of Republican administrations, and that the acts of the executive and his administration that flow from those values overall have contributed to more robust economies.
I do know this: looking at the objective data, and going on my own experiences, if I want to maximize my economic well-being, if I want to act in my own selfish best interests, I would not vote for a Republican for president.
I don't have one. I'm not sure I need one at this time.
Looking through the economics boards discussing the Dunne & Henwood paper, among the noise I see a large number of very talented trained economists wrestling with this very question. Some dismiss it, or invert the relationship, or point out that both are consequential on other factors emerging from the marketplace. Others embrace it and are trying to explain it. I'll wait and see.
Your question reminded me of another longitudinal study from another world: parenting. There have long been huge studies of what makes a successful parent, and what those parents do to have children reach adulthood healthy, whole, and ready to take on the world, as opposed to those parents whose children spiral down into poverty and self-destruction. Two classic outcomes were "Have a lot of books in the home," and "Have at least three sit-down dinners every week with your children." The problem with these outcomes is that, when they were introduced into families that previouly had not been doing them, there was little discernable change in their children's outcome. (No meaningful change at all for the books; a small uptick for meals, but nothing close to the outcomes for families that were already doing so naturally.)
The sad conclusion many social scientists have reached is that succesful parenting is not a matter of what you do, it is a matter of who you are. Sit-down meals and bookshelf-lined walls are merely indicators of other, nebulous values those parents have. Those values drive a parent's daily actions and reactions. They become thousands of little gestures, meaningful acts, and attentive moments that, over the child's formative years, add up to "being a successful parent." If you don't have those values then making the gross gestures isn't going to do a whole lot.
I suspect therefore that the answer lies in the "thousand small levers" theory of administration. It isn't a few grand things that the Dems do or the Reps fail to do that makes the Dems seemingly more successful at running our economy than the Reps. It's that the Democratic administrations have had values different from those of Republican administrations, and that the acts of the executive and his administration that flow from those values overall have contributed to more robust economies.
I do know this: looking at the objective data, and going on my own experiences, if I want to maximize my economic well-being, if I want to act in my own selfish best interests, I would not vote for a Republican for president.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Still not getting it
Date: 2008-07-15 06:24 pm (UTC)The fact that economists can't reach a consensus in this case isn't surprising; economics isn't a science yet. What's more telling to me is that any given economist (or layperson) will usually have some explanation to offer whether or not they really understand the situation.
But I think I can offer some observations that aren't particularly controversial.
Republicans traditionally get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to controlling government spending, but that presumption works against us when one comes along who isn't so thrifty, like the current President Bush. Voters suppose that if a Republican is willing to go along with heavy spending by Congress, there must be a good reason for it, even though there usually isn't. (But sometimes there is; Reagan's deal with Congress for temporarily increased military spending at the cost of temporarily increased social spending is the clearest example in my lifetime.)
Conversely, when we find a Democratic president who's willing to help reduce government spending, we're all happy about it; Clinton is the most obvious example of this. Now, I think Clinton started his campaign planning to increase spending in various areas-- certainly his wife did-- but voters made it clear that isn't what they wanted. Clinton listened, made the promises we wanted to hear, and then actually kept them. The result was striking, as we see in this chart from good ol' Ross Perot:
You can claim that Clinton deserves the credit for this result. Republicans attribute it to the trend toward conservativism that resulted in their Contract with America and Republican majorities in Congress for the last six years of the Clinton administration.
I think that both parties were really just complying with the demands of the electorate. And that begs the question, what influenced those demands? Well, when it comes to fiscal conservativism, it certainly isn't the Democratic Party providing the inspiration.
. png