Voting with one’s neighbors: Evidence from migration within Mexico

Frederico Finan, Enrique Seira and Alberto Simpser

Journal of Public Economics, 2021, vol. 202, issue C

Abstract: We study how proximate neighbors affect one’s propensity to vote using data on 12 million registered voters in Mexico. To identify this effect, we exploit idiosyncratic variation at the neighborhood block level resulting from approximately one million relocation decisions. We find that when individuals move to blocks where people vote more (less) they themselves start voting more (less). We show that this finding is not the result of selection into neighborhoods or of place-based factors that determine turnout, but rather peer effects. Consistent with this claim, we find a contagion effect for non-movers and show that neighbors from the same block are much more likely to perform an electoral procedure on the same exact day as neighbors who live on different blocks within a neighborhood.

Keywords: Neighborhood; Voter registration and electoral procedures; Turnout; Peer effects; Political behavior; Developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:202:y:2021:i:c:s0047272721001316

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104495

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