When reality is contingent on its representation

From 5 Other Things We’ll Learn About Biden After The Election by I & I Editorial Board.  Mostly predictable words.  Except for this passage.  

3. The economy has been doing much better than the public had been led to believe. Back in 1992, when George H.W. Bush was running for reelection, the press treated the economy as though it were in another depression, which just so happened to coincide with Bill Clinton’s campaign messaging. As soon as the election was over, coverage of the economy suddenly became more upbeat, and the public learned that the very mild recession had ended way back in March 1991. (A study of press coverage found that in October 1992, more than 90% of the economic news was negative. After the election, only 14% of the economic news was negative.)

Should Biden win, expect the press to reveal that, lo and behold, the recovery from the coronavirus shutdown had been much stronger than expected. They’ll highlight the fact that unemployment is well below the “experts” forecasts, and that GDP growth in the third quarter was well into the double digits. None of this could get reported before the election because it would have helped Trump.

I remember that phenomenon but it was far more an impression.  Pre-internet, pre-digitization, pre-smart phones, there were many phenomenon you had to judge by sentiment more than empirical measures.  It was very notable that there was a lot of negative commentary on the economy (remember: "It's the economy stupid") which seemed over-excited.  The leading economic indicators seemed to be showing a rebound but the media was entirely focused on the initiation of the slight recession and not the evidence of its resolution.

Until the election was over.  Then there was all the celebration of recovery which had already occurred under Clinton's predecessor, George H.W. Bush.  At the time, I could not have told you that economic reporting went from 90% negative to 14% negative solely because of the results of the election.  I suppose it was one of the earlier signals about bias in media reporting. 

Recollecting that campaign leads to another longstanding question in my mind which I have never seen research on.  

During the Clinton Presidency, there were two notable factors in play as background to a generally strong economy.  The first was the peace dividend arising from the fall of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Cold War.  We downsized the military, closed bases, cancelled weapons systems etc. all of which allowed money to be diverted into other, possibly more growth oriented, government programs.

At the same time, for much of his presidency, we had a Democratic White House and a Republican Congress.  Executive Orders were still used only on an exception basis and for anything to be accomplished legislatively, it entailed negotiation and compromise between the two parties and the two branches of government.  

In recent administrations, the inclination, when faced with mixed party dominance between the two branches, has been to resort to an ever-expanding use of Executive Orders.  A pernicious and lazy fall-back.  Negotiation and compromise pull us together while circumventing that process with an EO just polarizes everyone's positions and makes the stakes ever higher in terms of electoral outcomes.

The upshot of those years was that there were two factors bolstering the Clinton economy: more money made available due to the end of the Cold War and more responsible, inclusive money management due to the necessity of compromise between the White House and Congress.

I have always wondered which was more consequential to the run of economic good years.  I have long considered the inter-branch engagement the more important.  But I haven't seen any robust research one way or the other.