Bread, peace and the attrition of power: Economic events and German election results

Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income and the attrition of power, especially when the Federal Chancellor sought re-election more than twice. Similar to earlier results for the US, each percentage point of per capita real disposable income growth sustained over the legislative term yielded approximately 4 percentage points in votes in Germany. No other economic variables add value or significantly perturb the coefficients of our model.Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income and the attrition of power, especially when the Federal Chancellor sought re-election more than twice. Similar to earlier results for the US, each percentage point of per capita real disposable income growth sustained over the legislative term yielded approximately 4 percentage points in votes in Germany. No other economic variables add value or significantly perturb the coefficients of our model