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Framing Effects in Political Decision Making: Evidence From a Natural Voting Experiment

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Author Info
Bütler, Monika
Maréchal, Michel André

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Abstract

This paper analyzes a recent ballot in which two virtually identical popular initiatives, both demanding a decrease in the legal age of retirement in Switzerland, led to differences in approval rates of nearly seven percentage points. Based on this unique natural experiment, the existence of emphasis framing effects is tested for and their determinants are identified outside of the controlled settings of laboratories. Nonetheless, the analyzed setting allows for considerably more control than usually available in the field: All party, government and interest group recommendations were symmetric for both initiatives, and the simultaneous vote rules out potential variation of individual preferences and compositional changes of the electorate over time. Using community and individual level data it is shown that the difference in approval rates is largely due to the different emphases in the initiatives' titles.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 6200.

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Date of creation: Mar 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6200

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Related research
Keywords: bounded rationality; direct democracy; framing effect; natural experiment; pension reform; voting;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

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