Information Aggregation and Turnout in Proportional Representation: A Laboratory Experiment

Aniol Llorente-Saguer, Helios Herrera and Joseph McMurray ()

No 13280, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper documents a laboratory experiment that analyses voter participation in common interest proportional representation (PR) elections, comparing this with majority rule. Consistent with theoretical predictions, poorly informed voters in either system abstain from voting, thereby shifting weight to those who are better informed. A dilution problem makes mistakes especially costly under PR, so abstention is higher in PR in contrast with private interest environments, and welfare is lower. Deviations from Nash equilibrium predictions can be accommodated by a logit version of quantal response equilibrium (QRE), which allows for voter mistakes.

Keywords: Turnout; Information aggregation; Proportional representation; Majority rule; Laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment (2019)
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