'The Political Party of the President Matters for the Economy'

I have a new column:

The Political Party of the President Matters for the Economy: Since WWII, the economy does better when there is a Democrat in the White House. That conclusion holds for “almost every metric” of the economy’s performance according to research by Princeton economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson. But is this due to policy differences between Democratic and Republican administrations? Or, with the limited number of observations since WWII, is this simply a statistical artifact, simply the luck of having Democrats in the office when good things happen?

The dominant position among economists, one I’ll push back against, is that presidents have little ability to influence the economy. Steven Dubner, one of the authors of Freakonomics, gives the standard response:

“…just once I'd love a presidential candidate to get up there on the stump and say: 'My fellow Americans, I can't control the U.S. economy. I've got a little bit of influence but mostly it does what it does. So if it gets worse on my watch, you shouldn't blame me -- and if it happens to get better, you probably shouldn't give me too much credit either.'”

Austan Goolsbee, quoted in the same interview, echoes this:

“I think the world vests too much power -- certainly in the president, probably in Washington in general -- for its influence on the economy, because most all of the economy has nothing to do with the government.”

I disagree. Whether the president is a Republican or Democrat can make a critical difference for the economy. ...