Elite Economic Forecasts, Economic News, Mass Economic Judgments, and Presidential Approval

Abstract

MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson (1996) argue for a "banker" model of the electorate in which the expectations of economic experts flow through the news media to the mass public, then influencing presidential approval. Using business elites' expectations and retrospections, a content analysis of print media, and the electorate's presidential approval ratings, we evaluate the parts of this process. We find that news is not transmitted unchanged between elites and the public. Rather, there is partial news autonomy, by which the media assist in interpreting economic conditions. Also, political events and objective indicators of the economy have considerable impact on both news reports and mass expectations. Finally, it is elite retrospections that influence the electorate's economic expectations. While the mass public holds less sophisticated views than those of elites, we argue that this does not mean the electorate is naive or that its own prospective views of the economy are politically inconsequential.