Obama and the macroeconomy estimating social preferences between unemployment and inflation

This paper investigates social preferences towards unemployment and inflation in the United States. Estimating a popularity function with monthly data for the recent Obama administration, we find that U.S. voters react strongly to both unemployment and inflation. However, reducing unemployment is more important to society as voters would trade off 1 point of unemployment against 2.5 points of inflation. One point of unemployment costs the president about 4 points, one point inflation costs him 1.5 point. Moreover, we provide evidence that macroeconomic preferences are not stable over time. Finally, we show that public preferences towards unemployment and inflation are not homogeneous a ross different groups in society. The poor and low-educated, for example, react more strongly to changes in the unemployment rate than other groups

Selbstbehauptung, Nutzwerte und Gewinnaussichten. Ursprünge und Motive philosophischer Ökonomik

Der wirtschaftsphilosophische Diskurs steht gegenwärtig stark unter der Vorherrschaft einer wirtschaftsethischen Herangehensweise. Wirtschaftsethik ist indes nur ein Aspekt des Gesamtspektrums von Wirtschaftsphilosophie. Hinter der ethischen sowie erkenntnistheoretischen Abgrenzung der Philosophie von der Ökonomie in der Antike verbirgt sich sehr viel mehr als nur das, nämlich eine noch heute spektakuläre Erweiterung des ökonomischen Wahrnehmungs-, Denk- und Handlungshorizontes

Government popularity and the economy first evidence from German micro data

This is one of the first studies to estimate a popularity function at the micro-level. Using German micro-level data (GGSS/ALLBUS) for the years 1991, 1992, 1998, and 2008, we show that a positive assessment of the economy significantly improves government popularity while negative evaluations decrease satisfaction with the government. Voters take the (current and expected) national and personal economic situation into account. We find no evidence for a grievance asymmetry, i.e. voters punish the government for a bad economy but also reward them in good times. Finally, we show that popularity functions are only very crude proxies for vote functions, with the latter being mostly driven by party identification

The economic determinants of U.S. presidential approval: A survey

Even after four decades of research it remains unclear, whether presidential popularity depends on the state of the economy. While about half of all studies for the United States find a significant effect of unemployment and inflation on presidential popularity, the others do not. Additional economic issues have rarely been studied. In this survey article we study the likely causes for the inconclusive findings. While various factors have an influence on the results, especially the choice of the sample period is of crucial importance. While in the very long run we find unemployment, inflation and the budget deficit to have a robust effect on presidential approval, this holds not true for shorter sub-periods. This result might indicate that the popularity function is instable over time. However, the findings might also be taken as an indication that the most often employed linear estimation approach is inadequate. Further research on these issues is necessary

An optical readout for a fibre tracker

The performance of 16 and 64 channel photomultipliers coupled to scintillating fibres has been tested. The devices are sensitive to single photoelectrons, show little gain losses for magnetic fields up to 100 Gauss and have moderate optical cross-talk. The maximum channel to channel gain variations reach a factor two for the 16 channel version and a factor of four for the 64 channel PM. The measurements and simulations indicate that the photomultipliers are well suited for the light detection in fibre trackers.Comment: 11 pages, 9 picture

The economic determinants of US presidential approval: A survey

Even after four decades of research it remains unclear, whether presidential popularity depends on the state of the economy. While about half of all studies for the United States find a significant effect of unemployment and inflation on presidential popularity, the others do not. Additional economic issues have rarely been studied. In this survey article we study the likely causes for the inconclusive findings. While various factors have an influence on the results, especially the choice of the sample period is of crucial importance. While in the very long run we find unemployment, inflation and the budget deficit to have a robust effect on presidential approval, this holds not true for shorter sub-periods. This result might indicate that the popularity function is instable over time. However, the findings might also be taken as an indication that the most often employed linear estimation approach is inadequate. Further research on these issues is necessary

Unraveling the Relationship between Presidential Approval and the Economy - A Multi-Dimensional Semi-Parametric Approach

Empirical studies analyzing the determinants of U.S. presidential popularity have delivered quite inconclusive results concerning the role of economic variables by assuming linear relationships. We employ penalized spline smoothing in the context of semi-parametric additive mixed models and allow for flexible functional forms and thus possible non-linear effects for the economic determinants. By controlling for the well-known politically motivated covariables, we find strong evidence for non-linear and negative effects of unemployment, inflation, and government consumption on presidential approval. Additionally, we present new results in favor of non-parametric trivariate interaction effects between the macroeconomic covariables

Unraveling the relationship between presidential approval and the economy: A multi-dimensional semi-parametric approach

Empirical studies analyzing the determinants of U.S. presidential popularity have delivered quite inconclusive results concerning the role of economic variables by assuming linear relationships. We employ penalized spline smoothing in the context of semi-parametric additive mixed models and allow for flexible functional forms and thus possible non-linear effects for the economic determinants. By controlling for the well-known politically motivated covariables, we find strong evidence for non-linear and negative effects of unemployment, inflation, and government consumption on presidential approval. Additionally, we present new results in favor of non-parametric trivariate interaction effects between the macroeconomic covariables