When inflation spikes, it takes exactly seven months for the public to turn on the government.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
The Latency of Discontent: Measuring the Feedback Delay of Economic Shocks on Democratic Support in Brazil and the United States
SSRN · 6461658
The Takeaway
We assume political anger is an instant, emotional reaction to economic pain. This study of the US and Brazil found a remarkably consistent 'latency constant' of seven months before inflation shocks hit approval ratings. It’s as if humans have a universal psychological rhythm for how long they can tolerate rising prices before they demand a new leader. This 7-month lag means politicians are often punished for months-old mistakes, or rewarded for fixes that haven't actually helped yet. It suggests our political 'mood' follows a predictable, biological-like clock that politicians can't easily speed up or slow down.
From the abstract
This article provides a rigorous empirical test of the control-theoretic framework developed in the companion paper (Article 1). Using harmonized monthly time series for Brazil (2003-2024) and the United States (2004-2024), we estimate VAR(2) models with Cholesky identification to recover the peak response lag (τ*)-the primary empirical estimator of democratic feedback latency. An exploratory case (Chile) is presented separately in Appendix C. The principal findings are threefold. First, a 7-mon