A Century of Red Versus Blue: Which Party President Presides During Better Economic and Stock Market Times?
Surprisingly, the stock market performs much better with a Democratic president
I’ve been intrigued by a rhetorical question a presidential candidate often asks about the incumbent party’s president: “Are you better off now…?” There are lots of ways to answer that question, but it’s often framed in an economic context, of course pitting how good or bad a job a Republican versus Democratic president and their administration has done and is expected to do. Since I’m an evidence-based researcher I figured that there must be an objective way to try to answer that question.
Study Purpose and Methodology
The purpose of this study is to determine which political party president, the (red) Republican, or the (blue) Democratic one, presides during better economic times. I based the study on five criteria that I felt best captured the economy and stock market:
1) Overall economic growth (real gross domestic product or GDP),
2) Inflation (consumer price index or CPI),
3) Interest rates (the federal funds rate),
