Political reputation models feature forward-looking, rational voters who re-elect incumbents based on their estimate of an incumbent's ability level. Fiscal policy is one of the ways an incumbent establishes a reputation and thereby signals this ability level to voters. The reputation-building...

In a 1971 paper Kramer attempted to establish empirically that macroeconomic variables have a significant impact on the vote shares received by Democratic and Republican congressional candidates. He found mixed results, with the growth rate in per capita real income and the inflation rate being...