Testing for convergence in left-right ideological positions

This paper investigates convergence in left-right ideological positions in The Netherlands using cointegration techniques. Our sample consists of 765 weekly observations on those positions as well as on the corresponding political party preference. The time series data display nonstationary patterns in the sense that their means are not constant over time. Therefore, we rely on recently developed techniques in the analysis of multivariate nonstationary time series to study convergence. One of our results is that the ideological positions, when considered relative to a benchmark, can be described by trend-stationary processes. This means that we cannot reject the presence of convergence. Implications of this result are discussed.