Ok, Jeffery Frankel’s article in Project Syndicate is titled “Are Democrats Better for America’s Economy?” (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/are-democrats-better-for-american-economy-by-jeffrey-frankel-2016-06) but my takeaway is this:
“Blinder and Watson suggest that five factors – oil shocks, productivity growth, defense spending, foreign economic growth, and consumer confidence – may together explain 56% of the growth gap. But it is impossible to know the extent to which these factors were influenced by the US president’s policies. We know even less about the factors responsible for the other 44% of the performance gap.”
And, from Blinder and Watson’s study, (http://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/2015/10/AER_revision.pdf) the authors suggest that oil shocks are the most important (if I read their econometric results correctly). From Blinder and Watson:
“It seems we must look instead to several variables that are less closely tied to U.S. economic policy. Specifically, Democratic presidents have experienced, on average, better oil shocks than Republicans (some of which may have been induced by foreign policy), faster growth of defense spending (if the Korean War is included), and a better record of productivity shocks (which may relate to many different policies). More tenuously, both in terms of sample size and statistical significance, Democratic presidents may have also benefited from stronger growth abroad. These factors together explain up to 56 percent of the D-R growth gap in the full sample, and as much as 69 percent over shorter (post-1963) samples.”
So, if one were stuck on a desert and could see one indicator of how the economy was doing, the top pick should be oil prices over Buffet’s rail car loadings or Greenspan’s sales of men’s underwear…
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