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Partisan Conflict

Author

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  • Marina Azzimonti

    (stonybrook university)

Abstract
American politics have become extremely polarized in recent decades. This deep political divide has caused significant government dysfunction. Political divisions make the timing, size, and composition of government policy less predictable. According to existing theories, an increase in the degree of economic policy uncertainty results in a decline in economic activity. This occurs because businesses and households may be induced to delay decisions that involve high reversibility costs. In addition, disagreement between policymakers may result in stalemate that adversely aeffects the optimal implementation of policy reforms, and may result in excessive debt accumulation. Testing these theories has been challenging given the low frequency at which existing measures have been computed. In this paper, I provide a novel high-frequency indicator of partisan conflict. The index, constructed between 1891 and 2013, uses a search-based approach that measures the frequency of newspaper articles reporting lawmakers' disagreement about policy. I show that the trend in partisan conflict is related to polarization and income inequality. Its short-run fluctuations are highly correlated with elections, but unrelated to recessions. The lower-than-average values observed during wars suggest a "rally around the flag" effect. I use the index to study the effect of an increase in partisan conflict, equivalent to the one observed since the Great Recession, on business cycles. Using a simple VAR, I find that an innovation to partisan conflict increases government deficits and significantly discourages investment, output, and employment. Moreover, these declines are persistent, which may help explain the slow recovery observed since the 2007 recession ended.

Suggested Citation

  • Marina Azzimonti, 2015. "Partisan Conflict," 2015 Meeting Papers 471, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed015:471
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Torsten Persson & Lars E. O. Svensson, 1989. "Why a Stubborn Conservative would Run a Deficit: Policy with Time-Inconsistent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 325-345.
    2. Jacob Jensen & Ethan Kaplan & Suresh Naidu & Laurence Wilse-Samson, 2012. "Political Polarization and the Dynamics of Political Language: Evidence from 130 Years of Partisan Speech," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 1-81.
    3. Mathews, John M., 1919. "Political Parties and the War 1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 213-228, May.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    5. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
    6. Jacob Jensen & Ethan Kaplan & Suresh Naidu & Laurence Wilse-Samson, 2012. "Political Polarization and the Dynamics of Political Language: Evidence from 130 Years of Partisan Speech," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 45(2 (Fall)), pages 1-81.
    7. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    8. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2010. "What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 35-71, January.
    9. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2006. "Transparency, Political Polarization, and Political Budget Cycles in OECD Countries," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 530-550, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pierdzioch Christian & Gupta Rangan, 2020. "Uncertainty and Forecasts of U.S. Recessions," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(4), pages 1-20, September.
    2. Azzimonti, Marina, 2018. "Partisan conflict and private investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 114-131.
    3. Bouoiyour, Jamal & Selmi, Refk & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Measuring the response of gold prices to uncertainty: An analysis beyond the mean," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 105-116.
    4. Rangan Gupta & Chi Keung Marco Lau & Stephen M. Miller & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "US Fiscal Policy and Asset Prices: The Role of Partisan Conflict," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 851-862, December.
    5. Elliott Ash & Massimo Morelli & Richard Van Weelden, 2015. "Elections and Divisiveness: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 21422, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Laurent Bouton & Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2020. "The Political Economy of Debt and Entitlements," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2568-2599.
    7. Goodness C. Aye & Matthew W. Clance & Rangan Gupta, 2019. "The effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy shocks on U.S. inequality: the role of uncertainty," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 283-295, January.
    8. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    9. Vyacheslav Mikhed & Michael Vogan, 2017. "How Data Breaches Affect Consumer Credit," Working Papers 17-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    10. Mikhed, Vyacheslav & Vogan, Michael, 2018. "How data breaches affect consumer credit," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 192-207.
    11. Arbatli Saxegaard, Elif C. & Davis, Steven J. & Ito, Arata & Miake, Naoko, 2022. "Policy uncertainty in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Vyacheslav Mikhed & Michael Vogan, 2015. "Out of sight, out of mind: consumer reaction to news on data breaches and identity theft," Working Papers 15-42, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    13. Azzimonti, Marina & Fernandes, Marcos, 2023. "Social media networks, fake news, and polarization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    14. Hankins, William & Cheng, Chak & Chiu, Jeremy & Stone, Anna-Leigh, 2016. "Does partisan conflict impact the cash holdings of firms? A sign restrictions approach," Bank of England working papers 638, Bank of England.
    15. Cheng, Chak Hung Jack & Hankins, William B. & Chiu, Ching-Wai (Jeremy), 2016. "Does US partisan conflict matter for the Euro area?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 64-67.
    16. Mehmet Balcilar & Seyi Saint Akadiri & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2017. "Partisan Conflict and Income Distribution in the United States: A Nonparametric Causality-in-Quantiles Approach," Working Papers 201741, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.

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