Presidents and the Economic Agenda

The president’s ability to influence the national policy agenda is an important component of presidential power. Although some maintain that presidents are favorably situated to set agendas, others demonstrate that the president’s agenda-setting skills vary considerably by policy area. What is more, scholars have yet to examine the impact presidents have had focusing attention on the economy, an issue of vital importance to their political success. Extending previous research on presidential agenda setting that did not address economic policy (Edwards and Wood 1999; Wood and Peake 1998), we test the impact that the president’s public statements on the economy have on media and congressional attention to the economy. Using Vector Autoregression (VAR), we demonstrate that although presidents have some influence over the economic agenda, presidents are primarily responsive to media coverage of the economy.