IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v14y2022i1p293-326.html

How Effective Are Monetary Incentives to Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Mariella Gonzales
  • Gianmarco León-Ciliotta
  • Luis R. Martínez

Abstract

We study voters' response to marginal changes to the fine for electoral abstention in Peru, leveraging variation from a nationwide reform. A smaller fine has a robust, negative effect on voter turnout, partly through irregular changes in voter registration. However, representation is largely unaffected, as most of the lost votes are blank or invalid. We also show that the effect of an exemption from compulsory voting is substantially larger than that of a full fine reduction, suggesting that nonmonetary incentives are the main drivers behind the effectiveness of compulsory voting.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariella Gonzales & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Luis R. Martínez, 2022. "How Effective Are Monetary Incentives to Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Policy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 293-326, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:14:y:2022:i:1:p:293-326
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20200482
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200482
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E125561V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200482.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200482.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/app.20200482?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Donati, Dante, 2023. "Mobile Internet access and political outcomes: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    2. Klien, Michael & Melki, Mickael & Pickering, Andrew, 2021. "Voter turnout and intergenerational redistribution," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 603-626.
    3. Bhatt, Rachana & Dechter, Evgenia & Holden, Richard, 2020. "Registration costs and voter turnout," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 91-104.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • K16 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Election Law
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:14:y:2022:i:1:p:293-326. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.