Shocked at the thought

Who me?

From Inside Higher Ed:

Over much of the past half-century, state governors have helped keep public college tuition artificially low during gubernatorial election years, according to a new peer-reviewed article. But the study suggests more is at play than a governor's own career.

The study, published in the June issue of Empirical Economics by Kent State University Professor C. Lockwood Reynolds, found inflation-adjusted tuition is 1.5 percent lower in gubernatorial election years than in other years...

Lockwood found evidence that governors were trying to help lawmakers in their political party rather than their own careers.

“It’s exactly when you know you’re going to win that governors seem to be doing this, which tends to flip around the traditional story that would be told about these things,” Reynolds said.  He concluded governors might be trying to pass political goodwill to state legislative candidates in an effort to expand party control of the state legislature...

Full story with link at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/12/election-year-politics-seem-suppress-tuition-prices.

Economists!  Academics!  What could they be thinking?