Attitude-Dependent Altruism, Turnout and Voting

Julio Rotemberg ()

No 5146, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper presents a goal-oriented model of political participation based on two psychological assumptions. The first is that people are more altruistic towards individuals that agree with them and the second is that people’s well being rises when other people share their personal opinions. By conveying credible information on attitudes, votes give pleasure to individuals who agree with them and thereby confer vicarious utility on voters. Substantial equilibrium turnout emerges with nontrivial voting costs and modest altruism. The model can explain higher turnout in close elections as well as higher turnout by more informed and more educated individuals. For certain parameters, the model predicts that third party candidates will lose votes to more popular candidates, a phenomenon often called strategic voting. For other parameters, the model predicts ‘vote-stealing’ where the addition of a third candidate robs a major candidate of electoral support.

Keywords: altruism; elections; turnout; voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-soc
Date: 2005-07
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Related works:
Working Paper: Attitude-Dependent Altruism, Turnout and Voting (2008)
Journal Article: Attitude-dependent altruism, turnout and voting (2009)
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