Knowledge is power: a theory of information, income, and welfare spending

Jo Lind and Dominic Rohner

No 36, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: No voters cast their votes based on perfect information, but better educated and richer voters are on average better informed than others. We develop a model where the voting mistakes resulting from low political knowledge reduce the weight of poor voters, and cause parties to choose political platforms that are better aligned with the preferences of rich voters. In US election survey data, we find that income is more important in affecting voting behavior for more informed voters than for less informed voters, as predicted by the model. Further, in a panel of US states we find that when there is a strong correlation between income and political information, Congress representatives vote more conservatively, which is also in line with our theory.

Keywords: Redistribution; welfare spending; information; income; voting; political economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D72 D82 H53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic, nep-pke and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income and Welfare Spending (2017)
Working Paper: Knowledge is power - A theory of information, income, and welfare spending (2013)
Working Paper: Knowledge is power: A theory of information, income and welfare spending (2011)
Working Paper: Knowledge is Power - A Theory of Information, Income, and Welfare Spending (2011)
Working Paper: Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income, and Welfare Spending (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:econwp:036

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