Valence and Positional Economic Voting: A Comparison across Major Democracies

Classic economic voting theory argues that voters reward incumbents for good economic performances, and punish them when the economy is not doing well. Recent studies have looked at additional dimensions of economic voting, finding that it is not all about valence. In particular, evidence on the U.S. shows the independent effects of economic preferences and patrimony on vote choice. Extending this research direction, in this paper we adopt a comparative perspective to compare and contrast valence and positional economic voting across seven industrialized democracies. We use data from a special CAWI survey conducted by YouGov in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Denmark. The data contain a broad range of items about the economy, including performance evaluations and expectations, as well as different preferences about economic policy issues. Our findings indicate the presence of significant valence effects on vote choice in virtually all countries, while the importance of positional economic voting, though not being limited to the U.S. only, is less robust across countries.