Corrupted Votes and Rule Compliance

Arno Apffelstaedt and Jana Freundt (jana.freundt@unifr.ch)
Additional contact information
Jana Freundt: University of Fribourg, Department of Economics and University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences

No 137, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: Allegations of voter fraud accompany many real-world elections. How does electoral malpractice affect the acceptance of elected institutions? Using an online experiment in which people distribute income according to majority-elected rules, we show that those who experience vote buying or voter disenfranchisement during the election are subsequently less willing to comply with the rule. On average, the detrimental impact of electoral malpractice on compliance is of the same magnitude as removing the election altogether and imposing a rule exogenously. Our experiment shows how corrupting democratic processes can impact economic behavior and sheds light on the behavioral mechanisms underlying "rule legitimacy".

Keywords: rule compliance; endogenous institutions; corruption; procedural fairness; legitimacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D02 D72 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: pages
Date: 2022-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-des, nep-exp and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_137_2022.pdf First version, 2022 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Corrupted Votes and Rule Compliance (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:137

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany Niebuhrstrasse 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ECONtribute Office (research@econtribute.de).