Is there a partisan bias in the perception of the state of the economy? A comparative investigation of European countries, 2002–2016

Abstract

The literature on economic voting starts from the assumptions that citizens have a sufficiently high level of knowledge about their country’s economic situation, and that they vote according to their perception of the state of the economy. However, these assumptions have been challenged as economic perceptions could be plagued by partisan bias. We use the comparative dataset of the European Social Survey to investigate partisan bias in the perception of economic performance. Firstly, we observe that the economic perceptions of both supporters and opponents of governing parties are strongly related to real-life economic indicators such as gross domestic product growth and unemployment levels. Secondly, we find that shifts in economic performance (growth and unemployment) are strongly associated with similar changes in economic perceptions among both supporters of governing parties and opposition parties. There is, however, a significant but limited partisan bias in economic perceptions in countries with high levels of unemployment.