IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v130y2007i3p293-310.html

Letting the good times roll: A theory of voter inference and experimental evidence

Author

Listed:
  • John Patty

  • Roberto Weber

Abstract

This paper examines inference and attribution in a simple and ubiquitous strategic situation: a voter is faced with discerning whether a leader worked on his or her behalf after observing an informative, but noisy signal about the leader's performance. We characterize perfect Bayesian equilibria, quantal response equilibria (QRE), and provide a simple model of a heuristic-based approach, referred to as strategic naivete, within a wide class of such environments. We also discuss experiments conducted to examine human behavior within such an environment. While it is clear that the observed behavior is inconsistent with perfect Bayesian equilibrium, distinguishing between QRE and strategic naivete will require further work. We conclude with a discussion of the broader implications of probabilistic and/or heuristic-based attribution processes for electoral politics and political economy. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007

Suggested Citation

  • John Patty & Roberto Weber, 2007. "Letting the good times roll: A theory of voter inference and experimental evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 293-310, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:130:y:2007:i:3:p:293-310
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-006-9084-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-006-9084-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-006-9084-2?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keech,William R., 1995. "Economic Politics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521462068, November.
    2. Lupia,Arthur & McCubbins,Mathew D., 1998. "The Democratic Dilemma," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521585934, January.
    3. Quattrone, George A. & Tversky, Amos, 1988. "Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(3), pages 719-736, September.
    4. Lodge, Milton & McGraw, Kathleen M. & Stroh, Patrick, 1989. "An Impression-Driven Model of Candidate Evaluation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 399-419, June.
    5. Gautam Gowrisankaran & Matthew F. Mitchell & Andrea Moro, 2004. "Why Do Incumbent Senators Win? Evidence from a Dynamic Selection Model," NBER Working Papers 10748, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Richard McKelvey & Thomas Palfrey, 2015. "Erratum to: Quantal response equilibria for extensive form games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 762-763, December.
    7. Snyder, James M. & Ting, Michael M., 2003. "Roll Calls, Party Labels, and Elections," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 419-444.
    8. Wolfers, Justin, 2002. "Are Voters Rational? Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections," Research Papers 1730, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    9. Keech,William R., 1995. "Economic Politics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521467681, November.
    10. McKelvey, Richard D. & Patty, John W., 2006. "A theory of voting in large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 155-180, October.
    11. Lodge, Milton & Hamill, Ruth, 1986. "A Partisan Schema for Political Information Processing," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 505-519, June.
    12. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    13. Larry Samuelson, 1987. "A test of the revealed-preference phenomenon in congressional elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 141-169, January.
    14. Roemer, John E., 1994. "The Strategic Role of Party Ideology When Voters Are Uncertain about How the Economy Works," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(2), pages 327-335, June.
    15. Lau, Richard R. & Redlawsk, David P., 1997. "Voting Correctly," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(3), pages 585-598, September.
    16. Scott Ashworth, 2005. "Reputational Dynamics and Political Careers," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 441-466, October.
    17. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, 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. Little, Andrew T., 2017. "Propaganda and credulity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 224-232.
    2. Russo, Giuseppe & Salsano, Francesco, 2019. "Electoral systems and immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Alexander Baturo & Slava Mikhaylov, 2016. "Blair disease? Business careers of the former democratic heads of state and government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 335-354, March.
    4. Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political cycles and economic performance in OECD countries: empirical evidence from 1951–2006," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 155-179, January.
    5. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00662838, HAL.
    6. Philipp Denter & Boris Ginzburg, 2024. "Troll Farms," Papers 2411.03241, arXiv.org.
    7. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12003, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    8. Tandon, Sharad, 2012. "Economic reform, voting, and local political intervention: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 221-231.
    9. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Post-Print halshs-00662838, HAL.

    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. Sobel, Andrew C., 2002. "State institutions, risk, and lending in global capital markets," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 725-752, December.
    2. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    3. Meyer, Jacob & Rentschler, Lucas, 2023. "Abstention and informedness in nonpartisan elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 381-410.
    4. Serguey Braguinsky, 1998. "Democracy And Economic Reform: Theory And Some Evidence From The Russian Case," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(2), pages 227-240, April.
    5. Richard E. Wagner, 2012. "Deficits, Debt, and Democracy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14477, June.
    6. Geys, Benny & Vermeir, Jan, 2008. "Party cues and yardstick voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 470-477, June.
    7. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    8. Christenson, Dino P. & Goldfarb, Jillian L. & Kriner, Douglas L., 2017. "Costs, benefits, and the malleability of public support for “Fracking”," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 407-417.
    9. Madeeha Gohar Qureshi & Eatzaz Ahmed, 2012. "The Inter-linkages between Democracy and Per Capita GDP Growth: A Cross Country Analysis," PIDE-Working Papers 2012:85, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    10. Eduardo Lora & Mauricio Olivera, 2005. "The Electoral Consequences of the Washington Consensus," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 1-61.
    11. Sobel, Andrew C., 2003. "National governance and global lending," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 287-304.
    12. Michael Wallerstein, 2004. "Behavioral Economics and Political Economy," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 30, pages 37-48.
    13. Norman Schofield, 2013. "The “probability of a fit choice”," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 17(2), pages 129-150, June.
    14. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Quantal Response Equilibrium and Overbidding in Private-Value Auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 247-272, May.
    15. Zhang, Boyu & Hofbauer, Josef, 2016. "Quantal response methods for equilibrium selection in 2×2 coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-31.
    16. Quement, Mark T. Le & Marcin, Isabel, 2020. "Communication and voting in heterogeneous committees: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 449-468.
    17. Scharfenaker, Ellis, 2020. "Implications of quantal response statistical equilibrium," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    18. Nieken, Petra & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2012. "Repeated moral hazard and contracts with memory: A laboratory experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 1000-1008.
    19. John Morgan & Felix Várdy, 2013. "The Fragility of Commitment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1344-1353, June.
    20. Rui Nuno Baleiras & Jose da Silva Costa, 2001. "To be or not to be in office again, that is the question: political business cycles with local governments," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp402, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.

    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:kap:pubcho:v:130:y:2007:i:3:p:293-310. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.