The Global Economic Impact of Politicians: Evidence from an International Survey RCT

Dorine Boumans, Klaus Gründler (), Niklas Potrafke and Fabian Ruthardt

No 8833, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We use the US presidential election on 3 November 2020 to examine how the US president influences economic expectations of international experts. We design a large-scale RCT among 843 experts working in 107 countries, asking about their expectations regarding GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, and trade in their country. The sample is split randomly in two subsamples. Half of the participants were surveyed closely before the election, the other half directly after Joe Biden had been called US president. Our results show that the election of Joe Biden increased growth expectations of international experts by 0.98 percentage points for the year 2021. We also find that (i) treatment effects materialize only in the short-run and (ii) experts’ uncertainty increased after the election. Our results suggest that exceptional politicians influence global economic outcomes.

Keywords: US presidential elections; politicians; economic expectations; economic experts; Randomized Controlled Trial; causal inference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 D72 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: The Global Economic Impact of Politicians: Evidence from an International Survey RCT (2021)
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