A couple of weeks ago I gave a speech in which I anticipated that the audience would like to have some discussion about the potential economic effects of the upcoming presidential election in the U.S.

To support the discussion, I worked with one of our economics students at St. Mary’s  University to create a chart showing the growth in gross domestic product for the U.S. by presidential administration.

As shown in the graph, GDP growth during Democratic administrations averaged 4.13% and during the Republican administrations, growth averaged 1.77% if you include the Great Depression and 2.72% if you do not include the Great Depression. Without going into more in-depth analysis, it is difficult to make too much of these numbers. I do not think it is correct to just attribute strong or weak growth only to the policies passed during any of these administrations. They can certainly have effects on the economy during their times in office, but the strength or weakness of the economy during most presidential administrations is often due to some extent to the policies implemented well before a president takes office.

For example, some of President Hoover’s policies certainly made the Great Depression worse, but I do not think one can attribute the entire Depression to him. President Roosevelt was the beneficiary of the growth after the Great Depression, the massive amount of spending during World War II, and the fact that he was in office for twelve years. President Obama took office as the economy was at or near the depths of the Great Recession, the cause of which I would attribute to policies implemented by Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43.

There are other studies that go into more depth on growth during the presidential administrations that I may write about in future blog posts. As previously mentioned, while it is difficult to say much about growth during specific presidential administrations based only on the data presented in this chart, there is one fact worth noting. I hear quite a bit that the economy slows or even goes into recession during Democratic administrations, but as shown in the graph, that is clearly not the case.

In fact, it is just the opposite.