Economic Performance, Voting, and Political Support: A Unified Approach

A presidential vote function and a presidential approval ratings function are jointly estimated for U.S. post-war observations. The estimation technique treats the two equations as seemingly unrelated regressions with unequal numbers of observations. Cross-equation restrictions implying that voters and poll respondents use identical standards in judging the economic performance of incumbents are imposed and tested. Estimates show that both votes and approval ratings are influenced by GNP growth and inflation. The results suggest that poll respondents are more inflation averse than voters; however, tests of this hypothesis are not conclusive

Campaign Contributions and Congressional Voting: A Simultaneous Probit-Tobit Model

Full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimates of the simultaneous probit-Tobit (SPT) model suggest that effects of campaign contributions on voting are smaller than single equation probit estimates would indicate. The author has generally unable to conclude that contributions have a significant impact on voting decisions, apparently votes are most often decided on the basis of personal ideology or preferences of constituents. These findings differ markedly from earlier results of economists Gary C. Durden and Jonathan J. Silberman, whose single equation models showed a substantial impact of contributions on voting decisions. Despite the lack of significance according to model SPT, it would not, however, be appropriate to unambiguously conclude that contributions have no effects on voting. For six of eight coefficients the anticipated positive sign resulted and one coefficient remained marginally significant. The article also shows that the lack of significance is attributable not only to smaller coefficient size, but also to larger standard errors. The FIML estimates of the contribution coefficients are not very precise

Presidential Popularity and Macroeconomic Performance: Are Voters Really So Naive?

The article focuses on the relationships between the macroeconomic performance of political administration and their popularity or vote getting ability. All of the studies that has been performed to analyze the relationships agree that votes and popularity can be explained well by models which suppose that voters judge policy makers on the basis of retrospective evaluation of past macroeconomic outcomes. While conventional popularity functions assume that voters simply punish inflation and reward output or low unemployment, voters who understand the long and short run relationships noted above would evaluate policymakers differently. Inflation in a given period is largely determined by past expectations of inflation, which cannot easily be controlled by current policy choices. The results of a study done by the author, show that data on presidential popularity are consistent with the hypothesis that voters are concerned with the future consequences of current economic policy choices and are aware of the nature of constraints imposed by economic reality

Partisan Monetary Policies: Presidential Influence through the Power of Appointment

We investigate the channels through which partisan influence from a Presidential administration could affect monetary policy-making.Influence could be a result of direct Presidential pressure exerted on members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), or it could be a result of partisan considerations in Presidential appointments to the Board of Governors. To investigate these two channels of influence, we devise and apply a method for estimating parameters of monetary policy reaction functions that can vary across individual members of the FOMC Our results suggest that the appointments process is the primary mechanism by which partisan differences in monetary policies arise

Monetary Policy Preferences of Individual FOMC Members: A Content Analysis of the Memoranda of Discussion

The Memoranda of Discussion provide detailed records of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting deliberations. Procedures are developed for coding the textual data in the Memoranda and assessing the reliability of those codings. The codings are then used in the estimation of parameters of individual FOMC members\u27 reaction functions. Data from the 1970 to 1976 period are employed in the estimation. In the future, similar methods could be used to analyze newly released transcripts of FOMC meetings held after 1976

Aggregate Vote Functions for the US. Presidency, Senate, and House

Estimates vote functions for presidential, House and Senate elections following the premise that vote functions are likely to be related. Use of a seemingly unrelated regressions technique adapted to the case of unequal numbers of observations across equations; On-year versus mid-term congressional elections parameters; Influence of economic variables on election outcomes; Incumbency effects

The Rationality of Economic Voting Revisited

Examines the rationality of economic voting, using post-World War II United States national election data

FcRn Overexpression in Transgenic Mice Results in Augmented APC Activity and Robust Immune Response with Increased Diversity of Induced Antibodies

Our previous studies have shown that overexpression of bovine FcRn (bFcRn) in transgenic (Tg) mice leads to an increase in the humoral immune response, characterized by larger numbers of Ag-specific B cells and other immune cells in secondary lymphoid organs and higher levels of circulating Ag-specific antibodies (Abs). To gain additional insights into the mechanisms underlying this increase in humoral immune response, we further characterized the bFcRn Tg mice. Our Western blot analysis showed strong expression of the bFcRn transgene in peritoneal macrophages and bone marrow derived dendritic cells; and a quantitative PCR analysis demonstrated that the expression ratios of the bFcRn to mFcRn were 2.6- and 10-fold in these cells, respectively. We also found that overexpression of bFcRn enhances the phagocytosis of Ag-IgG immune complexes (ICs) by both macrophages and dendritic cells and significantly improves Ag presentation by dendritic cells. Finally, we determined that immunized bFcRn mice produce a much greater diversity of Ag-specific IgM, whereas only the levels, but not the diversity, of IgG is increased by overexpression of bFcRn. We suggest that the increase in diversity of IgG in Tg mice is prevented by a selective bias towards immunodominant epitopes of ovalbumin, which was used in this study as a model antigen. These results are also in line with our previous reports describing a substantial increase in the levels of Ag-specific IgG in FcRn Tg mice immunized with Ags that are weakly immunogenic and, therefore, not affected by immunodominance

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine design enabled by prototype pathogen preparedness

A vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is needed to control the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic. Structural studies have led to the development of mutations that stabilize Betacoronavirus spike proteins in the prefusion state, improving their expression and increasing immunogenicity1. This principle has been applied to design mRNA-1273, an mRNA vaccine that encodes a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that is stabilized in the prefusion conformation. Here we show that mRNA-1273 induces potent neutralizing antibody responses to both wild-type (D614) and D614G mutant2 SARS-CoV-2 as well as CD8+ T cell responses, and protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the lungs and noses of mice without evidence of immunopathology. mRNA-1273 is currently in a phase III trial to evaluate its efficacy