That’s the title of an informal panel at the UW La Follette School of Public Affairs on Tuesday. Here are the slides that underpin my presentation.
For now, let the following figure summarize the choices.
Source: “Trump vs Clinton: Polarization & uncertainty,” Research Briefing (Oxford Economics, 19 Sept. 2016) [not online].
The other panelists are Pam Herd, Greg Nemet, Rourke O’Brien, and Tim Smeeding.
The most valuable resource for tracking the U.S. elections is Nate Silver’s 538.
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Today, we are pleased to present a guest column written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. This is an extended version of a column appearing at Project Syndicate.
An interesting new research paper by Princeton Professors Alan Blinder and Mark Watson examines differences in performance of the economy under Democratic versus Republican presidents. The paper begins:
The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly
ubiquitous; it holds almost regardless of how you define success. By many measures, the
performance gap is startlingly large–so large, in fact, that it strains credulity, given how little
influence over the economy most economists (or the Constitution, for that matter) assign to the
President of the United States.
Like many other Americans and observers around the world, I find the ongoing spectacle in Washington both perplexing and distressing. But having seen the President follow the advice of our mighty blog for choosing the next chair of the Federal Reserve, I feel emboldened now to recommend a course of action for the House Republicans.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis economist Daniel Thornton has a new paper looking at long-run factors in the U.S. deficit and debt. His graphs tell a familiar story, but one worth repeating.
Let me outsource this topic to some others who’ve said it better than I could.
A few links to some items I found of interest.
President Obama won a second term in office yesterday, receiving 50.3% of the popular vote But the Republicans held control of the House of Representatives and Americans remain deeply divided. Historically, the party in control of the White House loses some congressional seats in the midterm elections. That means that any legislation passed into law over the next two years, and likely the next four years, is going to have to be agreed to by both a Democratic President and a Republican House.