Loss Aversion, Presidential Responsibility, and Midterm Congressional Elections

John W. Patty
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John W. Patty: Carnegie Mellon University

Public Economics from EconWPA

Abstract: I explore a behavioral model of political participation, first introduced by Quattrone and Tversky [1988], based on the primitives of prospect theory, as defined by Kahneman and Tversky [1979]. The model offers an alternative explanation for why the President’s party tends to lose seats in midterm congressional elections. The model is examined empirically and compared against competing explanations for the “midterm phenomenon”.

Keywords: Loss aversion; midterm elections; congressional elections; negative voting; midterm effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D6 D7 H (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
Date: 2005-02-16
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 40
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0502007

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