The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study

David Levine and Thomas R. Palfrey

American Political Science Review, 2007, vol. 101, issue 1, 143-158

Abstract: It is widely believed that rational choice theory is grossly inconsistent with empirical observations about voter turnout. We report the results of an experiment designed to test the voter turnout predictions of the rational choice Palfrey–Rosenthal model of participation with asymmetric information. We find that the three main comparative statics predictions are observed in the data: the size effect, whereby turnout goes down in larger electorates; the competition effect, whereby turnout is higher in elections that are expected to be close; and the underdog effect, whereby voters supporting the less popular alternative have higher turnout rates. We also compare the quantitative magnitudes of turnout to the predictions of Nash equilibrium. We find that there is undervoting for small electorates and overvoting for large electorates, relative to Nash equilibrium. These deviations from Nash equilibrium are consistent with the logit version of Quantal Response Equilibrium, which provides a good fit to the data, and can also account for significant voter turnout in very large elections.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (165)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study (2006)
Working Paper: The Paradox of Voter Participation: A Laboratory Study (2005)
Working Paper: A Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study (2005)
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:cup:apsrev:v:101:y:2007:i:01:p:143-158_07

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().