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Do Politicians’ Preferences Matter for Voters’ Voting Decisions?

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Author Info

  • Dahlberg, Matz

    () (Department of Economics)

  • Mörk, Eva

    () (Department of Economics)

  • Sorribas Navarro, Pilar

    () (Universitat de Barcelona and Institut d’Economia de Barcelona)

Abstract

Using unique survey data that allows us to observe both voters’ and politicians’ preferences for local public spending as well as voting decisions, this paper tests if voters typically support parties in which the politicians’ preferences are closest to their own. Doing so would be rational for the voters to do if politicians’ preferences matter for policy outcomes, as is the case in e.g. the citizen-candidate model. It is found that this is indeed the case. This finding is in line with theoretical models such as the citizen-candidate model arguing that politicians cannot credibly commit to election platforms that differ from their true policy preferences.

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File URL: http://www.nek.uu.se/Pdf/wp201110.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Uppsala University, Department of Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number 2011:10.

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Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: 16 May 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2011_010

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Postal: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P. O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Phone: + 46 18 471 25 00
Fax: + 46 18 471 14 78
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Web page: http://www.nek.uu.se/
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Keywords: Elections; voting; preferences for public services;

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References

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  1. Åsa Ahlin & Eva Johansson, 2001. "Individual Demand for Local Public Schooling: Evidence from Swedish Survey Data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 331-351, August.
  2. Per Pettersson-Lidbom, 2008. "Do Parties Matter for Economic Outcomes? A Regression-Discontinuity Approach," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(5), pages 1037-1056, 09.
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Cited by:
  1. Patrick Laurency & Dirk Schindler, 2011. "International Climate Agreements, Cost Reductions and Convergence of Partisan Politics," CESifo Working Paper Series 3591, CESifo Group Munich.

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