The Effect of Randomized School Admissions on Voter Participation

Justine Hastings, Thomas J. Kane, Doug Staiger and Jeffrey M. Weinstein

No 11794, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: There is little causal evidence on the effect of economic and policy outcomes on voting behavior. This paper uses randomized outcomes from a school choice lottery to examine if lottery outcomes affect voting behavior in a school board election. We show that losing the lottery has no significant impact on overall voting behavior; however, among white families, those with above median income and prior voting history, lottery losers were significantly more likely to vote than lottery winners. Using propensity score methods, we compare the voting of lottery participants to similar families who did not participate in the lottery. We find that losing the school choice lottery caused an increase in voter turnout among whites, while winning the lottery had no effect relative to non-participants. Overall, our empirical results lend support to models of expressive and retrospective voting, where likely voters are motivated to vote by past negative policy outcomes.

JEL-codes: D72 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dcm, nep-pol and nep-ure
Note: CH ED LS PE IO POL
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Published as Hastings, Justine, Thomas Kane, Douglas Staiger, and Jeffrey Weinstein. “The Effect of Randomized School Admissions on Voter Participation." Journal of Public Economics (June 2007).

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Journal Article: The effect of randomized school admissions on voter participation (2007)
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