A General Model of Latin American Economic Voting: Evidence from the Latinobarometers, 1996-2004

MICHAEL LEWIS-BECK; MARÍA CELESTE RATTO

Iowa City

Conferencia; Shambaugh Conference, "The New Economic Voter,”; 2012

Department of Political Science, The Iowa University

Economics and elections have been much-studied in the high-income democracies of North America and Europe. However, little is now, especially comparatively, about the economic voting in low-income democracies, such as those of Latin America. Here we offer the first comparative election study of the economic vote in this region. We apply a series of ever-more demanding statistical tests to an election survey pool of 12 Latin American nations, measured at three time periods (total N > 7,000). Unambiguously, the finding is of highly significant, even strong, sociotropic retrospective economic effects on the incumbent vote. In Latin America, as in other democratic nations studied thus far, governments are rewarded or punished, according to the economic performance they command.