A Preliminary Survey of the Theories and Findings on Vote and Popularity Functions

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Abstract
The survey covers the rapidly growing body of literature on party‐support models estimated on time series data for elections and popularity polls. The movements in the popularity of the parties are explained by their government participation and, mainly, the economic conditions as measured by the standard macroeconomic indicators. Sections 1 and 4 present the central qualitative findings and ideas of about 50 of the most important articles and conclude that the economic indicators explain around 1/3 of the variations in the party popularities; the main drawback of the models is their lack of stability. The remaining Sections—2 and 3 ‐ discuss the theory behind the models and some of the theoretical implications of the findings. That is, the problems involved in an adequate representation of the political factors; the time horizons at play; the relations to the micro theory of voting and the social welfare function; the formations of the expectations relevant and how people perceive the economy.