When the pound in people's pocket matters: how changes to personal financial circumstances affect party choice

Tilley, James, Neundorf, Anja and Hobolt, Sara ORCID: 0000-0002-9742-9502 (2018) When the pound in people's pocket matters: how changes to personal financial circumstances affect party choice. Journal of Politics, 80 (2). pp. 555-569. ISSN 0022-3816

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Abstract

In this paper we revisit the often disregarded ‘pocketbook voting’ thesis that suggests that people evaluate governments based on the state of their own finances. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey over the last 20 years, we measure changes in personal financial circumstances and show that the ‘pocketbook voting’ model works. Crucially, we also argue that the ability to attribute responsibility for these changes to the government matters. People respond much more strongly to changes in their own finances that are linked to government spending, such as welfare transfers, than to similar changes that are less clearly the responsibility of elected officials, such as lower personal earnings. We conclude that pocketbook voting is a real phenomenon, but that more attention should be paid to how people assign credit and blame for changes in their own economic circumstances.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jop/current
Additional Information:	© 2018 by the Southern Political Science Association.
Divisions:	European Institute
Subjects:	J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Date Deposited:	15 Jun 2017 15:06
Last Modified:	02 Nov 2024 18:48
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/81431

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