Jeremy Siegel on the Impact of the US 2006 Election

Jeremy Siegel is a finance professor at the Wharton School of Business who heads their Executive Education Securities Industry Institute. He was recently interviewed by the Knowledge@Wharton staff about his perceptions concerning the impact of last week's elections.

Overall, he believes that market didn't take a nose dive because the technology stocks did well and tend to support Democratic candidates. Another reason Siegel gave was that the polls said that the Senate races would be tight and possibly would shift to the Democrats, so the market was ready for it.

What was the most interesting was the dialog about how the US elections could impact trade and relationships in India and China. Here's a snippet:

Knowledge@Wharton: Do you think that these elections will affect our relationships with [markets such as] India and China?

Siegel: I hope they don't. The Democrats have talked tougher on loss of jobs and outsourcing. They've talked tougher on Wal-Mart, for instance -- you know, the firms that do so much business with China -- and that is a concern, I think. However, one has to remember that we still have a Republican President for two more years, and certainly the Democrats do not have enough votes for a veto over-ride. I don't think that on any real trade issue, that puts any high restrictions on the trade.

To read the interview, click here. If you want an audio version, go here to download. Windows media or Real Player required to open and play the file.

Tags: 2006 Congressional Elections, international political economy, China, India, Jeremy Siegel, Wharton School of Business, u2iperg