Partisan Business Cycle Analysis

Partisan business cycle analysis tests whether left-wing and right-wing governments produce systematically different macroeconomic outcomes. Douglas Hibbs's 1977 partisan theory argued that because left and right parties represent constituencies with different exposures to unemployment and inflation, left governments durably push for lower unemployment while tolerating higher inflation, and right governments do the reverse. Alberto Alesina's 1987 rational partisan theory added rational expectations and nominal wage contracts: when parties differ and election outcomes are uncertain, the surprise of who wins generates only a transitory burst of partisan divergence in output and employment, which fades once contracts adjust. The empirical method regresses macroeconomic series on a partisan government indicator and post-election dummies to distinguish permanent from transitory effects.