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Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections

Public Choice volume 104, pages 149–180 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

A simple ``Bread and Peace'' model shows that aggregate votes forPresident in postwar elections were determined entirely byweighted-average growth of real disposable personal income percapita during the incumbent party's term and the cumulativenumbers of American military personnel killed in action as aresult of U.S. intervention in the Korean and Vietnamese civilwars. The model is subjected to robustness tests against twenty-two variations in functional form inspired by the extensiveliterature on presidential voting. Not one of these variationsadds value to the Bread and Peace model or significantly perturbsits coefficients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Göteborg University, Box 640, S-405 30, Göteborg, Sweden

    Douglas A. Hibbs Jr.

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Hibbs, D.A. Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections. Public Choice 104, 149–180 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005292312412

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005292312412

Keywords

  • Presidential Election
  • Vote Share
  • American Political Science Review
  • Yield Spread
  • Incumbent Party