Replication Data for: You and Whose Economy?: Group-Based Retrospection in Economic Voting

When managing the economy, governments make decisions that influence not only overall growth but also its distribution. How do voters judge incumbents for this? I revisit the idea of group-based retrospective voting and argue that voters assess the economic performance of their social in-groups relative to the national economy. By sanctioning the incumbent for in-group performance, voters can incentivize policy-making that better aligns with their interests. I test the theory, first, by estimating the relationship between in-group performance and incumbent support in panel data. This relationship is comparable in magnitude to sociotropic voting. I further conduct three experiments in Denmark and the United States, randomizing information about the performance of groups defined by geography, age, education, ethnicity and class. The findings suggest there are limits to sociotropic voting, as voters want their groups to follow or beat the national trend. This has important implications for electoral accountability and party competition.在经济治理进程中，政府制定的决策不仅会影响整体经济增长，还会作用于增长的分配格局。选民会如何据此评判在任官员？本文重新审视了基于群体的回顾性投票（group-based retrospective voting）理论，提出选民会结合本国整体经济状况，评估自身所属社会群体的经济表现。通过依据群体经济表现对在任官员实施奖惩，选民能够激励政策制定更好地契合自身利益。为验证该理论，本文首先通过面板数据（panel data）估算群体经济表现与在任官员支持率之间的关联，该关联的强度与社会取向投票（sociotropic voting）相当。随后，本文分别在丹麦与美国开展三项实验，对按地域、年龄、教育背景、种族及阶层划分的群体的经济表现信息进行随机化处理。研究结果表明，社会取向投票存在一定局限，因为选民期望自身所属群体的经济表现能够追平甚至超越全国整体趋势。这一发现对选举问责制与政党竞争均具有重要启示意义。