1 Monroe, Kristen and Erickson, Lynda, “The Economy and Political Support: The Canadian Case,” Journal of Politics 48 (1986), 616–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Similar results for the New Democratic party over the period 1954 to 1961 are provided by Erickson, Lynda, “CCF-NDP Popularity and the Economy,” this Journal 21 (1988), 99–116.Google Scholar

3 Johnston, Richard, Public Opinion and Public Policy in Canada, Research Studies of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, vol. 35 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for Supply and Services Canada, 1986), 123.Google Scholar

4 Erickson, “CCF-NDP Popularity.”

5 Clarke, Harold D. and Zuk, Gary, “The Politics of Party Popularity: Canada 1974–1979,” Comparative Politics 20 (1987), 229–315.Google Scholar

6 Clarke, Harold D., Stewart, Marianne C., and Zuk, Gary, “The Political Economy of Party Support in Canada: 1980–1984,” mimeograph (1986).Google Scholar

7 Happy, J. R., “Voter Sensitivity to Economic Conditions: A Canadian-American Comparison,” Comparative Politics 19 (1986), 45–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Economic Performance and Retrospective Voting in Canadian Federal Elections,” this Journal 22 (1989), 377–87.

8 Happy estimates the equations using data on federal elections from 1930 to 1979, without allowing the economic coefficients to change within or between the prewar, war or postwar periods. Clarke and Zuk (“Politics of Party Popularity,” 299) mention that errors could arise from not allowing the coefficients to change over long sample periods. In ways other than the assumption of coefficient stability, the present study differs from those by Happy. For example, the present study uses a set of regional zero-one variables rather than a lagged dependent variable, regional rather than provincial electoral data, and national rather than provincial economic data.

9 A summary of the assumptions made by retrospective voting models can be found in Kiewiet, D. Roderick, Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: The Electoral Effects of Economic Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 5–26Google Scholar. A survey of their results can be found in Kiewiet, D. Roderick and Rivers, Douglas, “A Retrospective on Retrospective Voting,” Political Behavior 6 (1984), 369–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Earlier surveys include that of Kramer, Gerald H., “Short-term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896–1964,” American Political Science Review 65 (1971), 131–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and that of Monroe, Kristen R., “Economic Analysis of Electoral Behavior: A Critical Review,” Political Behavior 1 (1979), 137–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 See, for example, Clarke, Harold D., Jenson, Jane, Leduc, Lawrence, and Pammett, Jon, “Voting Behaviour and the Outcome of the 1979 Federal Election: The Impact of Leaders and Issues,” this Journal 15 (1982), 517–52.Google Scholar

11 For a discussion of these assumptions in a Canadian context, see Archer, Keith and Johnson, Marquis, “Inflation, Unemployment and Canadian Federal Voting Behaviour,” this Journal 21 (1988), 569–84.Google Scholar

12 For a discussion of this possibility in a Canadian context, see Erickson, “CCF-NDP Popularity,” 104–06.

13 Monroe and Erickson, “The Economy and Political Support,” 618.

14 Undoubtedly there are many other factors that might affect the outcome of single elections—a new party leader, a salient issue such as national unity, a contentious policy such as free trade. Factors such as these are not formally introduced to the model, and thus are represented by the error term.

15 One can pool time-series (election) and cross-sectional (region) data if the coefficients on the economic variables are the same for all regions. With an F statistic one can test the null hypothesis that the coefficients are the same. On the basis of such F tests, one cannot reject the null hypothesis for any of the equations presented in Tables 1 and 2. For a description of the test, see Maddala, G. S., Econometrics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), 323–26.Google Scholar

16 Kramer, “Short-term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior.”

17 Stigler, George J., “General Economic Conditions and National Elections,” American Economic Review 69 (1973), 160–67.Google Scholar

18 Fair, Ray C., “The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for the President,” The Review of Economics and Statistics 60 (1978), 159–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Hibbs, Douglas A., “On the Demand for Economic Outcomes: Macroeconomic Performance and Mass Political Support in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany,” Journal of Politics 44 (1982), 426–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Kiewiet and Rivers, “A Retrospective,” 370.

21 Ibid., 387.

22 Ibid., 374.

23 Real personal disposable income per capita is positively correlated with nominal disposable income per capita and is negatively correlated with the unemployment rate. These pairs of variables are not combined in an equation in order to avoid problems of muticollinearity.

24 Brodie, M. Janine, “Tensions from Within: Regionalism and Party Policy in Canada,” in Thornburn, Hugh G. (ed.), Party Politics in Canada (5th ed.; Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 72–83.Google Scholar

25 The t statistics for each pair of economic coefficients are not included on the tables. For Table 1 these statistics range from 2.23 to 3.46, leading one to reject at the 5 per cent level the null hypothesis that the coefficients are the same for the two sets of elections.

26 Monroe and Erickson, “The Economy and Political Support,” 633.

27 See the citation from Monroe and Erickson (618) on p. 716 above.

28 Monroe and Erickson (“The Economy and Political Support,” 621–23) present survey results suggesting that during the 1970s Canadians held the federal government responsible for the economy.