Republican and Democratic politicians offer very different agendas and proposals, but do they translate into real differences in outcomes? John Holbein finds that party control of government does not have any near-term impact across dozens of social and economic outcomes. But Jacob Grumbach finds that recent party control is associated with big changes in policy in some issue areas, sometimes producing real differences in directly-related outcomes like health insurance rates. Parties influence policy and some related outcomes, but perhaps not enough to declare one party better at improving well being.

Photo Credit: Julio Obscura under CC By 2.0 Generic.