Causality testing of the popularity function: An empirical investigation for the Federal Republic of Germany, 1971-1982.

Relying on Allensbach and Infratest data, it is asked if there is a relation between the perception of the general economic situation and the voting intention. Modern time series techniques are employed: Box-Jenkins analysis and Granger causality tests. The test results as well as ex post predictions show that voting intentions are strongly influenced by the perceived economic situation. Thus, the null hypothesis of no relationship between the variables cannot only be rejected by using classical econometric methods, as is done in previous studies, but also by employing modern time series procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]