Do voters vote in line with their policy preferences? The role of information

Mattias Nordin ()
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Mattias Nordin: Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies, Postal: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

No 2010:15, Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies from Uppsala University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates how information a ects voting behavior. Speci cally, I test (i) if more informed voters are better at voting for their most preferred politicians and (ii) if this translates into a bias on the aggregate level. To do so, I use a set of Swedish individual survey data on the preferences for public spending of both politicians and voters, which provides an opportunity to investigate how information affects voters' ability to match their preferences with those of the politicians. The results support both hypotheses: more informed voters are more likely to vote for their most preferred politicians, and on the aggregate level, I find that the left-wing parties would have received 1 to 3 percentage points fewer votes if all voters had been fully informed.

Keywords: Voting behavior; Information; Vote aggregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D80 H71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2010-12-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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