IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jae/japmet/v18y2003i3p251-269.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Party loyalty as habit formation

Author

Listed:
  • Ron Shachar

    (Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel 69978)

Abstract

In most democracies, at least two out of any three individuals vote for the same party in sequential elections. This paper presents a model in which vote-persistence is partly due to the dependence of the utility on the previous voting decision. This dependence is termed 'habit formation'. The model and its implications are supported by individual-level panel data on the presidential elections in the USA in 1972 and 1976. For example, it is found that the voting probability is a function of the lagged choice variable, even when the endogeneity of the lagged variable is accounted for, and that the tendency to vote for different parties in sequential elections decreased with the age of the voter. Furthermore, using structural estimation the effect of habit is estimated, while allowing unobserved differences among respondents. The structural habit parameter implies that the effect of previous votes on the current decision is quite strong. The habit model fits the data better than the traditional 'party identification' model. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Ron Shachar, 2003. "Party loyalty as habit formation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 251-269.
    • Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:18:y:2003:i:3:p:251-269
    DOI: 10.1002/jae.698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jae.698
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2003-v18.3/
    File Function: Supporting data files and programs
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jae.698?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wittman, Donald, 1983. "Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternative Theories," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 142-157, March.
    2. Bernhardt, M. Daniel & Ingerman, Daniel E., 1985. "Candidate reputations and the `incumbency effect'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 47-67, June.
    3. Franklin, Charles H. & Jackson, John E., 1983. "The Dynamics of Party Identification," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 957-973, December.
    4. Enelow,James M. & Hinich,Melvin J., 1984. "The Spatial Theory of Voting," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521275156.
    5. Erikson, Robert S., 1989. "Economic Conditions and the Presidential Vote," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 567-573, June.
    6. Kenneth Rogoff & Anne Sibert, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16.
    7. Thomas R. Palfrey, 1984. "Spatial Equilibrium with Entry," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(1), pages 139-156.
    8. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    9. Miller, Arthur H. & Wattenberg, Martin P. & Malanchuk, Oksana, 1986. "Schematic Assessments of Presidential Candidates," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 521-540, June.
    10. Shachar, Ron, 1994. "A diagnostic test for the sources of persistence in individuals' decisions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 7-13, May.
    11. Markus, Gregory B. & Converse, Philip E., 1979. "A Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Model of Electoral Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 1055-1070, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Zvi Eckstein & Ron Shachar, 2007. "Correcting for bias in retrospective data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 657-675.
    2. Arianna Degan & Antonio Merlo, 2007. "A Structural Model of Turnout and Voting in Multiple Elections, Fourth Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 07-025, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Aug 2007.
    3. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Decentralization and political institutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2261-2290, December.
    4. Arianna Degan & Antonio Merlo, 2011. "A Structural Model Of Turnout And Voting In Multiple Elections," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 209-245, April.
    5. Kroh, Martin & Selb, Peter, 2009. "Inheritance and the Dynamics of Party Identification," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 31(4), pages 559-574.
    6. Volker Grossmann, 2006. "On the Ideology Motive in Political Economy Models," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 5(1), pages 75-82, April.
    7. Brett Gordon & Mitchell Lovett & Ron Shachar & Kevin Arceneaux & Sridhar Moorthy & Michael Peress & Akshay Rao & Subrata Sen & David Soberman & Oleg Urminsky, 2012. "Marketing and politics: Models, behavior, and policy implications," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 391-403, June.
    8. Tomer Blumkin & Volker Grossmann, 2004. "Ideological Polarization, Sticky Information, and Policy Reforms," CESifo Working Paper Series 1274, CESifo.
    9. repec:ucn:wpaper:10197/167 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Kevin Denny & Orla Doyle, 2009. "Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 17-35, January.
    11. Raphael Franck & Samia Tavares, 2008. "Income and vote switching between local and national elections: evidence from New York State," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(10), pages 1-10.
    12. Bozzoli, Carlos & Müller, Cathérine, 2011. "Perceptions and attitudes following a terrorist shock: Evidence from the UK," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(S1), pages 89-106.
    13. Tomer Blumkin & Volker Grossmann, 2010. "May increased partisanship lead to convergence of parties’ policy platforms?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 547-569, December.
    14. Christoph Engel, 2024. "The German Constitutional Court – Activist, but not Partisan?," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2024_04, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    2. Chang Wen-Chun, 2008. "Toward Independence or Unification?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-32, January.
    3. JuanD. Carrillo & Micael Castanheira, 2008. "Information and Strategic Political Polarisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 845-874, July.
    4. Arianna Degan, 2003. "A Dynamic Model of Voting," PIER Working Paper Archive 04-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 May 2004.
    5. Anja Prummer, 2016. "Spatial Advertisement in Political Campaigns," Working Papers 805, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Ivo Bischoff, 2005. "Party competition in a heterogeneous electorate: The role of dominant-issue voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 221-243, January.
    7. Anja Prummer, 2016. "Spatial Advertisement in Political Campaigns," Working Papers 805, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    8. Jorge M. Streb & Gustavo Torrens, 2011. "La economía política de la política fiscal," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 455, Universidad del CEMA.
    9. Alan E. Wiseman, 2006. "A Theory of Partisan Support and Entry Deterrence in Electoral Competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 123-158, April.
    10. John Jackson, 2014. "Location, location, location: the Davis-Hinich model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 197-218, April.
    11. William D. Nordhaus, 1989. "Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(2), pages 1-68.
    12. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    13. Georges Casamatta & Philippe Donder, 2005. "On the influence of extreme parties in electoral competition with policy-motivated candidates," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(1), pages 1-29, October.
    14. Martínez-Mora, Francisco & Puy, M. Socorro, 2014. "The determinants and electoral consequences of asymmetric preferences," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 85-97.
    15. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2021. "Appointed public officials and local favoritism: Evidence from the German states," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    16. Sandro Brusco & Jaideep Roy, 2011. "Aggregate uncertainty in the citizen candidate model yields extremist parties," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(1), pages 83-104, January.
    17. Paul Redmond, 2017. "Incumbent-challenger and open-seat elections in a spatial model of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 79-97, January.
    18. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias, 2010. "Competition between Specialized Candidates," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(4), pages 745-765, November.
    19. Tanner, Thomas Cole, 1994. "The spatial theory of elections: an analysis of voters' predictive dimensions and recovery of the underlying issue space," ISU General Staff Papers 1994010108000018174, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    20. Juan Carlos Berganza, 2000. "Politicians, voters and electoral processes: an overview," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(3), pages 501-543, September.

    More about this item

    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:jae:japmet:v:18:y:2003:i:3:p:251-269. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

    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.