This paper investigates how information affect voting behaviour. There exist a large literature suggesting that uninformed voters can use informational shortcuts or cues to vote as if they were informed. This paper tests this hypothesis using unique Swedish individual survey data on the preferences of both politicians and voters. I find that uninformed voters are significantly worse than informed voters at voting for their most preferred politicians. This suggests that uninformed voters can not make up for their lack of information using shortcuts. Furthermore, the errors uninformed voters make do not cancel out in large elections. Estimates suggest that the ruling majorities would have switched in almost 5% of Swedish municipalities had all voters been fully informed. The effects are estimated with both parametric and nonparametric estimation techniques.
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Paper provided by Uppsala University, Department of Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number
2009:14.
Length: 35 pages Date of creation: 18 Sep 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2009_014
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
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