Trumping the Economy?

Harold Clarke, Karl Ho and Marianne Stewart

School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas

Since his election in November 2016, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is responsible for a surge in the performance of the American economy. In this poster, my co-authors, Karl Ho (University of Texas at Dallas) and Marianne Stewart (University of Texas at Dallas) and I will present the results of analyses of trends in the performance of the macro-economy over the period from January 2009 to February 2019. A principal focus is the stock-market. Using EGARCH models we will analyze if the dynamics of the mean and variance of major market indices (Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ) have varied systematically since Trump became president. We also will conduct similar analyses for other major macro-economic indicators such as growth and unemployment, with the latter considered for population sub-groups such as African-Americans, Hispanics and women. Data for the analyses are downloaded from the FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) Database website.

Poster presented at the 2019 Texas Methodology Conference at the Rice University, March 22-23.