ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS, PRIME MINISTERIAL APPROVAL AND GOVERNING PARTY SUPPORT - RIVAL MODELS RECONSIDERED

The argument that personal economic expectations drive support for Bri tish governing parties has received wide attention. This article emplo ys aggregate data for the 1979-92 period to assess the effects of pers onal expectations, other subjective economic variables and evaluations of prime ministerial performance in rival party-support models. Analy ses of competing models, including error correction specifications tha t take into account nonstationarity in the time series of interest, in dicate that the personal expectations variants generally do very well, although they do not outperform one or more alternatives incorporatin g other types of economic evaluations. The error correction models sho w that the prime minister's approval ratings have significant short-te rm and long-term effects on governing party popularity.