economic growth in hibbs.dat

[bnicenboim]

Hi,
I wanted to add the last two elections for the hibbs.dat dataset, and I was wondering from where was the income growth taken (or calculated).

[andrewgelman]

I can't remember! I looked up some numbers somewhere to complete the dataset, but I don't remember where.

[beanumber]

Can you share the updated data that includes the 2016 and 2020 elections that were used to create Figures 33 and 34 on page 99 of Active Statistics?

Looking up the vote share should not be hard, but the provenance of the income growth data is not clear. Were they BLS figures?

[andrewgelman]

Hi, below is the info in the file that I call hibbs_full.dat. The question is, where did I get the economic growth numbers from? The answer is, I'm not sure. I think the old numbers came from a file posted by Doug Hibbs. I think I got the new numbers by performing his calculation--maybe it was a weighted average of economic growth during the two years preceding the election, or something like that?--using public economic growth numbers, maybe from the Federal Reserve website?
Andrew

year growth vote inc_party_candidate other_candidate inc_running
1952 2.4 44.6 "Stevenson" "Eisenhower" 0
1956 2.89 57.76 "Eisenhower" "Stevenson" 1
1960 .85 49.91 "Nixon" "Kennedy" 0
1964 4.21 61.34 "Johnson" "Goldwater" 1
1968 3.02 49.60 "Humphrey" "Nixon" 0
1972 3.62 61.79 "Nixon" "McGovern" 1
1976 1.08 48.95 "Ford" "Carter" 1
1980 -.39 44.70 "Carter" "Reagan" 1
1984 3.86 59.17 "Reagan" "Mondale" 1
1988 2.27 53.94 "Bush, Sr." "Dukakis" 0
1992 .38 46.55 "Bush, Sr." "B. Clinton" 1
1996 1.04 54.74 "B. Clinton" "Dole" 1
2000 2.36 50.27 "Gore" "Bush, Jr." 0
2004 1.72 51.24 "Bush, Jr." "Kerry" 1
2008 .1 46.32 "McCain" "Obama" 0
2012 .95 52.00 "Obama" "Romney" 1
2016 2 51.11 "H. Clinton" "Trump" 0
2020 -.5 47.73 "Trump" "Biden" 1

[beanumber]

Thank you!!