Do economic think tanks analyze the US economy on the natural business cycle or the political business cycle?

Question

How do economists measure the long-term status and health of the economy given the influence of the political business cycle? Do economic think tanks analyze the US economy on the natural business cycle or the political business cycle?

Answer 1

There has been work done looking at the effects of the party in power on the economy but there are not enough data points to obtain statically significant answers. Mostly they just try to explain the counter intuitive result that the economy does better when Democrats have the presidency. Because of the large effects that events have on fiscal policy and on economic activity, the only robust results are on the effects of monetary policy. Therefore much of the work on political business cycle centers on the effect of the president's party on monetary policy and the timing of elections, but this also suffers from too few data points. Think tanks analyze these effect, and so do economist at Universities, but the FED does most of the research because it is their job.

Answer 2

I'm not going to attempt to read the minds of every think tank economist, but if one was to seriously attempt to anayze the business cycle, political change is something that needs to be considered. But it is rather difficult to predict what economic policies a future political group might institute, eh?

Answer 3

Yes to both reasons, but not for the benefit of the common man, but for their own lust for power and wealth.