Justine S. Hastings Thomas J. Kane Douglas O. Staiger Jeffrey M. Weinstein
Abstract
There is little causal evidence on the effect of economic and policy outcomes on voting behavior. This paper uses randomized outcomes from a school choice lottery to examine if lottery outcomes affect voting behavior in a school board election. We show that losing the lottery has no significant impact on overall voting behavior; however, among white families, those with above median income and prior voting history, lottery losers were significantly more likely to vote than lottery winners. Using propensity score methods, we compare the voting of lottery participants to similar families who did not participate in the lottery. We find that losing the school choice lottery caused an increase in voter turnout among whites, while winning the lottery had no effect relative to non-participants. Overall, our empirical results lend support to models of expressive and retrospective voting, where likely voters are motivated to vote by past negative policy outcomes.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
11794.
Length: Date of creation: Nov 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11794
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
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