Does Voter Turnout Affect the Votes for the Incumbent Government?

Rodrigo Martins and Francisco Veiga

No 2013-20, GEMF Working Papers from GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of voter turnout on the vote shares received by the incumbent government. A system of simultaneous equations is estimated using a panel dataset of 278 Portuguese municipalities, for the period 1979-2005, covering 10 legislative elections. The results indicate that right-wing governments have lower vote shares when turnout is higher, while left-wing ones seem to be unaffected. There is also evidence of the responsibility hypothesis, that turnout is higher in closer elections, and that regional/local economic variables have non-linear effects on turnout.

Keywords: Vote Shares; Turnout; Legislative Elections; Portugal. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2013-09
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Published in European Journal of Political Economy 36: 274-286, 2014.

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https://repec.uc.pt/gmf/wpaper/wpgemf/gemf_2013-20.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does voter turnout affect the votes for the incumbent government? (2014)
Working Paper: Does voter turnout affect the votes for the incumbent government? (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2013-20

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