Voto económico con incertidumbre. El caso de Chile

José Luis. Sáez-Lozano, Antonio Jaime-Castillo () and Leonardo Letelier
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José Luis. Sáez-Lozano: University of Granada, Spain
Leonardo Letelier: University of Chile, Chile

El Trimestre Económico, 2014, vol. LXXXI (4), issue 324, pp. 809-837

Abstract: Since Tibbits published in 1931 a study on the relationship between the business cycle and the electorate results, the analysis of economic voting has been outlining a theory that explains the decision of the voters. In this paper we present a model of economic voting, in which voters are assumed to be risk-neutral and uncertain about the prospective economic situation of the country. The voter’s decision is based upon an additively separable utility function, which has two elements: the prospective sociotropic evaluation and the ideological distance between the voter and the candidates. The voter’s goal consists in choosing a candidate who maximizes the expected utility of his decision. By using a pooled data set from presidential elections that took place in Chile in 1993, 1999-2000 and 2005-2006, we conclude that both the electoral context as well as the leadership are the exogenous factors having the biggest impact over the electoral behavior. We also find that Chileans’ economic voting is sophisticated, rational and heterogeneous.//Desde que en 1931 Tibbits publicó un estudio sobre la relación entre el ciclo económico y los resultados electorales, el análisis del voto económico ha ido perfilando una teoría que explica la decisión de los electores. A diferencia de otras investigaciones, en este artículo se plantea un modelo de voto económico en el que suponemos que los electores son racionales, neutrales ante el riesgo y poseen incertidumbre ante la situación económica prospectiva del país. El objetivo último del elector es votar por el candidato que le permita maximizar la utilidad esperada de su decisión. De las estimaciones realizadas a partir de la matriz de microdatos agrupados de las elecciones presidenciales celebradas en Chile en 1993, 1999-2000 y 2005-2006, se concluye que el liderazgo y el contexto electoral son los factores que más condicionan el comportamiento de los electores. También comprobamos que el voto económico de los chilenos es sofisticado, racional y heterogéneo.

Keywords: accountability; voto económico; utilidad esperada (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 D72 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.20430/ete.v81i324.131

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