The President of the United States Does Not Control the Economy

A newly updated paper shows that the economy has reliably grown faster under Democratic presidents than Republicans. But what does that really tell us?

For years, Americans have listed the economy as their "most important problem," and it seems like countless elections have swung on candidates' sugar-coated promises to accelerate growth, create jobs, and generally make us all as rich as we've dreamed. But just how much power does the president really have over the economy, in the first place?

In a new update to a fantastically interesting paper, Princeton professors Alan Blinder and Mark Watson offer an answer that says, essentially, they have much less power than you think.