Informed voters and electoral outcomes: a natural experiment stemming from a fundamental information-technological shift

Shane Sanders (), Joel Potter, Justin Ehrlich, Justin Perline and Christopher Boudreaux
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Shane Sanders: Syracuse University
Joel Potter: University of North Georgia
Justin Ehrlich: Syracuse University
Justin Perline: Pittsburgh Pirates

Public Choice, 2021, vol. 189, issue 1, No 13, 257-277

Abstract: Abstract Do informed electorates choose better candidates? While that question is straightforward, its answer often is elusive. Typically, candidate-quality information is neither salient nor subject to exogenous change. We identify a natural experiment within a non-political election setting that is transparent and features exogenous change in the candidate-quality information frontier. The setting is Major League Baseball’s (MLB) annual selection of two most valuable players, a challenging environment with an innately heterogeneous candidate set, and the exogenous change is the development of the pathbreaking, comprehensive player-value measure Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in 2004 and its subsequent calculation for all retrospective MLB player-seasons. WAR's development and rapid popularization informed voting from 2004 onward. Retrospective calculation allows us to draw back the curtain and evaluate how pre-2004 voters behaved with respect to revealed candidate quality. From negative binomial, fixed-effect regression models, we find robust evidence of significant, substantial, pivotal behavioral change on the part of voters since 2004.

Keywords: Voter information; Voting behavior; Candidate quality; Information frontier shift; Wins above replacement; Major league baseball (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D80 Z29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-021-00884-z

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