On Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality in a Cross-Section of Countries

Mauricio Olivera and Alberto Chong

No 1556, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: This paper explores the link between compulsory voting and income distribution using a cross-section of countries around the world. Our empirical cross-country analysis for 91 countries during the period 1960-2000 shows that compulsory voting, when enforced strictly, improves income distribution, as measured by the Gini coefficient and the bottom income quintiles of the population. Our findings are robust to changes and additions to our benchmark specification. Since poorer countries suffer from relatively greater income inequality, it might make sense to promote such voting schemes in developing regions such as Latin America. This proposal assumes that bureaucratic costs related with design and implementation are not excessive.

Keywords: WP-533 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C00 D31 J3 J30 J31 J32 J33 J38 J39 P5 P50 P51 P52 P59 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-05
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Working Paper: On Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality in a Cross-Section of Countries (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:1556

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