The Taiwan Voter by Christopher H. Achen & T. Y. Wang

Author:Christopher H. Achen & T. Y. Wang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 2018-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

In this paper, I examined evidence of economic voting in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 presidential elections. On the one hand, I found that partisanship is a better predictor of outcome than retrospective economic assessment. On the other, prospective economic evaluation is a major determinant of voting behavior when controlling for partisanship. Notice that in 2008, prospective evaluation of the economy may reflect people’s judgment on the newly elected government’s handling of the economy rather than a true preelection prospective judgment.

Our aggregate-level analysis suggests that economic conditions may not explain the incumbent party’s election results. Instead, only the previous election outcome is a good predictor. Our economic indicator, DIPC of one and two years, could involve measurement errors because some people hide portions of their real income, such as rent and stocks. More work is needed to devise a good macroeconomic voting model.

One of our findings is that the electorate does not punish incumbents for their performance in the first term. This is interesting because it implies Page 155 →that the incumbent has the advantage. A possible cultural explanation is that people in Taiwan dislike sudden change. Instead, they tend to wait before throwing the incumbent out. Certainly, I need more election results to test this hypothesis.

Table 6.7. Model of Combined Incumbent Party’s Vote Share in 2008 and 2012 Incumbent’s vote share

(Intercept) −8.03***

(0.86)

2012 presidential election 1.78***

(0. 36)

Incumbent’s vote share 0.99***

in the last election (0.02)

Percentage change in 2.10

the previous year (2.14)

R-squared 0.99

Adj. R-squared 0.99

N 43

Note: ***p < 0.001, two-tailed test. Standard errors are in parentheses.

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