Voting age, information experiments, and political engagement: Evidence from a general election

Philip Keefer and Razvan Vlaicu

Journal of Development Economics, 2025, vol. 174, issue C

Abstract: This paper addresses voter incentives for political engagement in developing countries, using self-collected experimental and quasi-experimental survey data. Does voting eligibility create intrinsic incentives to become engaged and informed, or do voters remain rationally ignorant and apathetic? What motivations underlie political interest? Are voters knowledgeable about policy issues debated during election campaigns? To address these questions, we fielded a survey of high school seniors across thirty Mexican campuses a few weeks prior to a major general election. Age-based regression discontinuity indicates that the just-eligible measure higher on political motivation and actions than the just-ineligible. One survey experiment shows that information about the potential magnitude of the youth vote increases eligible respondents’ political interest in ways consistent with social incentives. In the second experiment, information about current policy challenges affects eligible respondents’ policy priorities less than the ineligible, reflecting eligibles’ pre-existing knowledge about salient policy issues.

Keywords: Voter engagement; Age discontinuity; Social incentives; Policy knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D83 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:174:y:2025:i:c:s0304387825000094

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103458

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