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Will Ohio State’s football team decide who wins the White House?
[h=1]Will Ohio State?s football team decide who wins the White House?[/h]by Tyler Cowen on October 25, 2012 at 5:25 am in Political Science, Sports | Permalink
Here is my recent Slate.com piece with Kevin Grier, excerpt:
[h=1]Will Ohio State?s football team decide who wins the White House?[/h]by Tyler Cowen on October 25, 2012 at 5:25 am in Political Science, Sports | Permalink
Here is my recent Slate.com piece with Kevin Grier, excerpt:
Just how irrational are voters? It is statistically possible that the outcome of a handful of college football games in the right battleground states could determine the race for the White House.
Economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia Mo make this argument in a fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They examined whether the outcomes of college football games on the eve of elections for presidents, senators, and governors affected the choices voters made. They found that a win by the local team, in the week before an election, raises the vote going to the incumbent by around 1.5 percentage points. When it comes to the 20 highest attendance teams?big athletic programs like the University of Michigan, Oklahoma, and Southern Cal?a victory on the eve of an election pushes the vote for the incumbent up by 3 percentage points. That?s a lot of votes, certainly more than the margin of victory in a tight race. And these results aren?t based on just a handful of games or political seasons; the data were taken from 62 big-time college teams from 1964 to 2008.
The good news, we suppose, is that sports really can cheer us up and make the world seem like a brighter place. The sports fan is left happier and more satisfied all around, not just on the gridiron. When you are feeling upbeat and happy, you feel more satisfied with the status quo in general. And feeling satisfied with the status quo makes you more likely to vote for the incumbent politician, even if that?s totally irrational.
Economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia Mo make this argument in a fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They examined whether the outcomes of college football games on the eve of elections for presidents, senators, and governors affected the choices voters made. They found that a win by the local team, in the week before an election, raises the vote going to the incumbent by around 1.5 percentage points. When it comes to the 20 highest attendance teams?big athletic programs like the University of Michigan, Oklahoma, and Southern Cal?a victory on the eve of an election pushes the vote for the incumbent up by 3 percentage points. That?s a lot of votes, certainly more than the margin of victory in a tight race. And these results aren?t based on just a handful of games or political seasons; the data were taken from 62 big-time college teams from 1964 to 2008.
The good news, we suppose, is that sports really can cheer us up and make the world seem like a brighter place. The sports fan is left happier and more satisfied all around, not just on the gridiron. When you are feeling upbeat and happy, you feel more satisfied with the status quo in general. And feeling satisfied with the status quo makes you more likely to vote for the incumbent politician, even if that?s totally irrational.
The study?s authors control for economic, demographic, and political factors, so the results are much more sophisticated than just a raw correlation. They also did a deeper analysis that took into account people?s expectations. It turns out that surprise wins are especially potent, raising local support for incumbent politicians by around 2.5 percentage points.