External Validation of Voter Turnout Models by Concealed Parameter Recovery

Antonio Merlo and Thomas Palfrey

PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: We conduct a model validation analysis of several behavioral models of voter turnout, using laboratory data. We call our method of model validation concealed parameter recovery, where estimation of a model is done under a veil of ignorance about some of the experimentally controlled parameters — in this case voting costs. We use quantal response equilibrium as the underlying, common structure for estimation, and estimate models of instrumental voting, altruistic voting, expressive voting, and ethical voting. All the models except the ethical model recover the concealed parameters reasonably well. We also report the results of a counterfactual analysis based on the recovered parameters, to compare the policy implications of the different models about the cost of a subsidy to increase turnout.

Keywords: Turnout; voting; model validation; parameter recovery; laboratory experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C52 C92 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2013-02-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/filevault/13-012.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: External validation of voter turnout models by concealed parameter recovery (2018)
Working Paper: External Validation of Voter Turnout Models by Concealed Parameter Recovery (2014)
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:pen:papers:13-012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania 133 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Administrator ().