Does Political Knowledge Increase Turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British General Election
Abstract
A number of recent formal models predict a positive effect of politicalknowledge on turnout. Both information acquisition and turnout, however,are likely to be determined by a similar set of variables, rendering hard theidentification of a causal link in empirical investigations. Availableempirical regularities should therefore be interpreted as mere correlations. Iaddress this problem by using an instrumental variables approach, where theinstruments are represented by various proxies of information supply onmass media. Using survey data from the 1997 British General ElectionStudy, I show that political knowledge has a sizeable influence on theprobability of voting and that mass media play an important role ininfluencing political participation.Download Info
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Paper provided by Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE in its series STICERD - Political Economy and Public Policy Paper Series with number 01.Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cep:stipep:01
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Web page: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/default.asp
Related research
Keywords: voting; information; mass media; political participation;Other versions of this item:
- Valentino Larcinese, 2007. "Does political knowledge increase turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British general election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 387-411, June.
- D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Jo Thori Lind & Dominic Rohner, 2011.
"Knowledge is power: a theory of information, income, and welfare spending,"
ECON - Working Papers
036, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
- Jo Thori Lind & Dominic Rohner, 2011. "Knowledge is Power - A Theory of Information, Income, and Welfare Spending," CESifo Working Paper Series 3613, CESifo Group Munich.
- Lind, Jo Thori & Rhoner, Dominic, 2011. "Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income, and Welfare Spending," Memorandum 26/2011, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
- Lind, J.T. & Rohner, D., 2011. "Knowledge is power: A theory of information, income and welfare spending," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1161, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
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- Boeri, Tito & Tabellini, Guido, 2005.
"Does Information Increase Political Support for Pension Reform?,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
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- Tito Boeri & Guido Tabellini, 2012. "Does information increase political support for pension reform?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 327-362, January.
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