André Reslow
Welcome to my website!
I am PhD candidate in Economics at Uppsala University.
I will be on the 2020/2021 academic job market. You find my Job Market Paper below, and my CV here.
My main research interests are in the fields of Political Economy and Macroeconomics.
I was a visiting PhD student at the Department of Economics, New York University, during the 2018/2019 academic year. I hold an M.Sc. in Econometrics and a B.Sc. in Economics from Stockholm University.
Contact: andre.reslow@nek.uu.se Google Scholar
My Job Market Paper
Electoral Cycles in Macroeconomic Forecasts
This paper documents the existence of Political Forecast Cycles. In a theoretical model of political selection, we show that governments release over-optimistic GDP growth forecasts ahead of elections. In the model, the incumbent government releases over-optimistic forecasts to increase the probability of being re-elected. While the bias arises from lack of commitment under rational voters, it comes from manipulation of voters’ beliefs if voters are naive and do not expect the incumbent to bias. Using high-frequency forecaster-level data from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, we confirm key model predictions. We document that governments overestimate short-term GDP growth by 10 to 13 percent during campaign periods. Furthermore, we find that the bias is larger when the incumbent government is not term-limited or constrained by a parliament led by the opposition. Consistent with the model, we also find that the election timing and amount of available information determine the size of the bias at different forecast horizons.