Turnout, Political Preferences and Information: Experimental Evidence from Peru

Gianmarco León-Ciliotta
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Gianmarco León-Ciliotta ()

No 691, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: I combine a field experiment with a change in voting laws reducing the fine for abstention to assess the effects of monetary incentives to encourage voter participation. In a real world election, using individual-level experimental variation in the perceived reduction of the fine for abstention and an objective measure of turnout, I estimate that a 10 percent decrease in the cost of abstention reduces the probability of voting by 2.2 percentage points. As predicted by the model presented, the reduction in turnout is driven by voters who (i) are in the center of the political spectrum, (ii) hold less political information and (iii) have lower subjective value of voting. The increase in abstention does not change aggregate preferences for specific policies, on average. Further, involvement in politics, as measured by the decision to acquire political information, seems to be independent of the level of the fine.

Keywords: voting behavior; incentives to vote; electoral politics; public choice; Peru (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D72 O10 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-lam and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru (2017)
Working Paper: Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Perú (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:691

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