Search

Although support for the president among members of Congress and public approval of the president?s job performance among members? constituents vary both cross-sectionally and over time, the measures and research designs commonly used in studies of individual members? behavior do not tap and analyze both types of systematic variation jointly. This paper seeks to correct two important limitations of previous research. First, we use a new database of state level surveys (Beyle, Niemi, and Sigelman 2001) to show that constituency level presidential approval is composed of a relatively stable partisan component that varies cross-sectionally, and a dynamic component. Second, we construct 6-month presidential support scores to tap both variation across members of Congress and variation over the course of a year, and we use a panel design that allows us analyze both cross-sectional and dynamic components of the relationship. We find that the two components of constituency level presidential popularity have a statistically significant, but substantively marginal, affect on support in the Senate over the period 1973-2002. The strongest determinants of presidential support among individual members of Congress are party and ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effect of presidential war-talk on consumer attitudes and behavior. Using time series data running from January 1978 through June 2003, we use vector autoregression to show that increased presidential war-talk produces declining consumer confidence and personal consumption. We also find that presidential war-talk may increase consumer perceptions of negative economic news. The analysis also contained limited evidence that negative economic news can lead presidents to increase war-talk. Given the dual leadership responsibilities of the U.S. president for the economy and foreign policy, our results suggest that presidents should use war-talk cautiously to maintain stable economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past empirical research has disregarded the potential effects of presidential rhetoric on U.S. macroeconomic performance. We theorize that the relative optimism of presidential remarks on the economy should affect macroeconomic performance by altering the psychology of consumer behavior. We measure the relative optimism of presidential remarks on the economy through content analysis of all public statements by the president on economic performance, unemployment, and inflation from 1978 through April 2002. Controlling for actual macroeconomic outcomes, we use vector autoregression analysis to show that presidential remarks significantly affect people’s perceptions of the economic news, as well as their confidence about current and future economic conditions. Using simulation analysis, we also demonstrate that presidential rhetoric operating through these indirect channels can have significant impacts on U.S. economic growth and unemployment. However, presidential remarks on inflation tend to exacerbate the problem. The larger implication is that the president has a heretofore little understood tool for affecting the economy, rhetoric. However, the effective application of this tool may depend on the president’s credibility. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]