Guest Contribution: “Do Voters Pursue Their Economic Self-Interest?”

It is especially puzzling why so many lower and middle-income Americans support him, since his policies tend to their economic disadvantage. Three common explanationsEconomists rely too heavily on the assumption that voters seek to act in their economic self-interest. That would seem to leave the third explanation: the voters fail to understand the economic effects of the policies. Some people may not be especially motivated to try to vote in their own economic self-interest. One sort of evidence seems consistent with the hypothesis that voters don’t necessarily stake out the political stance that they think benefits them personally.