Looking to the future: Prospective economic voting in 2008 Presidential Elections

► We propose a new method for studying prospective economic voting. ► Our method involves treating prospective economic evaluations as choice-specific, and not respondent-specific, data. ► We collect data that solicits prospective economic evaluations conditional on the outcome of the election. ► We find strong evidence of prospective economic voting using this method in the 2008 US Presidential Election. ► We confirm the external validity of this finding by observing similar results in the 2008 Ghanaian Presidential Election.