Publication Date

2009-08-14

Availability

Open access

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)

Department

Economics (Business)

Date of Defense

July 2009

First Committee Member

Christopher Cotton - Committee Member

Second Committee Member

Luca Bossi - Committee Member

Third Committee Member

Luis Locay - Mentor

Fourth Committee Member

Carlos Seiglie - Outside Committee Member

Abstract

This dissertation contributes the literature by developing a new method of measuring political dominance combining the legislative and executive branches in bi-party political system and by investigating the effect of political dominance on economic performance using panel data for forty-six states of United States for the period 1937-1996. Economic performance is measured by the relative level of per-capita personal income and growth of per-capita personal income. This dissertation finds that political dominance has significant negative effects on the level of relative per-capita personal income and on the growth of per-capita personal income. Additionally, this paper modifies the two existing measures of political dominance using exclusively seat share of legislative branches or governor’s vote share and examines the short run effect of political dominance on economic performance using these modified measures. It finds that political dominance using exclusively seat share of legislative branches or governor’s vote share either overestimates or underestimates the effect of political dominance on economic performance.

Keywords

Political Dominance; Economic Performance

Download

Share

COinS