Experimental Evidence on Expressive Voting

Jean-Robert Tyran and Alexander Wagner

No 16-12, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: Standard economic reasoning assumes that people vote instrumentally, i.e., that the sole motivation to vote is to influence the outcome of an election. In contrast, voting is expressive if voters derive utility from the very act of expressing support for one of the options by voting for it, and this utility is independent of whether the vote affects the outcome. This paper surveys experimental tests of expressive voting with a particular focus on the low-cost theory of expressive voting. The evidence for the low-cost theory of expressive voting is mixed.

Keywords: Expressive Voting; Experiment; Public Choice; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2016-09-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-pol and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1612

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