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Government Ideology and Unemployment in the U.S. States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Nathan J. Kelly  and
Christopher Witko
Nathan J. Kelly*
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
Christopher Witko
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
*
Christopher Witko, University of South Carolina, 817 Henderson Street, 323 Gambrell Hall, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. Email: witko@sc.edu
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Abstract

Research shows that when the more liberal Democratic Party controls the national government, unemployment is lower, but whether liberal state governments are associated with lower unemployment has not been examined. We argue that more left-leaning governments in the U.S. states have the same preference for and willingness to use government to reduce unemployment, but that the greater resource and policymaking constraints that the states face during economic downturns limit their ability to shape unemployment to economic growth periods. We find evidence for these arguments in an analysis of the U.S. states for the period of 1975–2010. Specifically, when economic growth is low, liberal state governments are associated with increases in unemployment rates similar to or even somewhat higher than conservative governments, but when growth is moderate to high, liberal state governments are associated with greater-than-expected reductions in unemployment. We also provide some evidence that different state spending decisions between liberal and conservative state governments may explain these patterns.

Keywords

political economyeconomic policypublic policyfiscal policypublic policypolitical partiesparties and interest groupsfederalism
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 389 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014

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