Costly voting, turnout, and candidate valence

Anna Lo Prete and Federico Revelli

Economics Letters, 2017, vol. 158, issue C, 10-13

Abstract: We build a model of voluntary and costly expressive voting, where the relative weight of ideology and valence issues over voting costs determines how people vote and if they actually turn out to vote. In line with the conventional rational calculus approach, the model predicts that the cost of voting depresses voter turnout. Against the conventional wisdom, though, high voting cost/low turnout elections tend to have a larger share of voters for whom the common value signal on candidates’ valence matches their private value views, thus raising the chances that high valence candidates are elected.

Keywords: Voter turnout; Voting cost; Ideology; Valence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Costly voting, turnout, and candidate valence (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:158:y:2017:i:c:p:10-13

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2017.06.025

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