Economic Voting Theory in the Philippines

Abstract

The study examined how the performance of the politicians influences the voters’ decisions in the elections. The researchers modified Reed’s (1994) performance-based voting model to evaluate the performance of the politicians during their term in office. Since the model is a repeated election framework, the researchers focused on the senatorial elections during the Arroyo to Duterte administration (2004-2019) in the Philippines. The framework was used to determine whether the prospective or retrospective voting theories occurred in the elections and was able to compute for the value of the office of the politicians and evaluate their performance in office. The study showed that the retrospective voting theory occurred more than the prospective voting theory. It also showed that the citizens would vote for the senator regardless of their performance in office.