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Expenditures and votes: In search of downward-sloping curves in the United States and Great Britain

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Abstract

An earlier paper showed a negative relation between increases and accelerations in F, the ratio of federal expenditures to GNP and E, the reelection or defeat of the incumbent party in the White House over the last 100 years. This paper argues that there also exists a negative relation between V, the percentage of the popular vote cast for the incumbents, and F. This function is displaced by wars and depressions and can drift over time, making it difficult to discover negative curves in the data. Dividing British and US data for the last 50 years into party periods yields clearly discernable negative functions for F and V for the incumbents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, The University of West Florida, 32514, Pensacola, FL

    Alfred G. Cuzán

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, 87131, Albuquerque, NM

    Richard J. Heggen

Authors
  1. Alfred G. Cuzán
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  2. Richard J. Heggen
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Additional information

An earlier version was presented before the 1983 meeting of the Public Chocie Society, Savannah, 24 March. The authors wish to thank Gordon Tullock, whose relentless criticism did much to improve the paper. Thanks also to Arthur Doerr, James Witt, and others at The University of West Florida for their encouragement. Thanks, finally, to Judy Peters and Dale Ganus for typing many drafts of this manuscript.

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Cuzán, A.G., Heggen, R.J. Expenditures and votes: In search of downward-sloping curves in the United States and Great Britain. Public Choice 45, 19–34 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00163585

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00163585

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