When voters cast ballots retrospectively on economic and social issues in the US, partisan politics seems irrelevant. Do objective performance metrics like education or crime actually reflect government accountability? Analyzing state-level data using difference-in-difference and regression discontinuity methods, this research demonstrates that regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power, states tend to show similar outcomes across various policy areas (e.g., economy, health, environment) two to four years downstream from elections. These findings suggest voters may struggle to truly hold political coalitions accountable, as objective performance metrics appear largely beyond their immediate control.
| Noisy Retrospection: The Effect of Party Control on Policy Outcomes was authored by Adam Dynes and John Holbein. It was published by Cambridge in APSR in 2020. |
