Public choice theory takes citizens as rationally ignorant about political issues, because the costs of being informed greatly exceed the utility individuals derive from it. The costs of information (supply side) as well as the utility of information (demand side), however, can vary substantially depending on the political system under which citizens live. Using a large survey from Switzerland, we present empirical evidence that citizens are politically better informed when they have more extended participation rights in the political process. The results corroborate theoretical arguments and circumstantial evidence that voter information should be treated as endogenously determined by political institutions.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW in its series IEW - Working Papers with number
iewwp119.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger, .
"Measuring Terrorism,"
IEW - Working Papers
iewwp171, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW.
[Downloadable!]