Voting When the Stakes Are High

Jørgen Andersen, Jon Fiva and Gisle Natvik

No No 8/2013, Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School

Abstract: Most theories of voter behavior predict that electoral participation will be higher in elections where more is at stake. We test this prediction by studying how participation is affected by exogenous variation in local governments' financial flexibility to provide pork for their voters. Utilizing simultaneous elections for different offices, we identify a positive effect of election stakes on participation: Higher stakes at the local level increase participation at the local relative to the regional election. Survey evidence indicates that the underlying mechanism relates to citizens' aquisition of information.

Keywords: Voter Motivation; Electoral Participation; Roll-Off; Pork Barrel Spending (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D83 H7 H71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2013-10
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Related works:
Journal Article: Voting when the stakes are high (2014)
Working Paper: Voting when the stakes are high (2010)
Working Paper: Voting when the Stakes are High (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bny:wpaper:0017

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