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Public employees lining up at the polls—the conditional effect of living and working in the same municipality

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  • Yosef Bhatti

  • Kasper Hansen

Abstract

Do public employees vote more frequently than private employees? The turnout of public employees has been of central interest to public choice scholars for almost a century. Utilizing a government records dataset that is not subject to over-reporting and differential social desirability bias, we find that public employees voted 11–12 percentage points more than their counterparts in the private sector. In a multivariate analysis, however, the effect is only four to five percentage points greater for local government public employees, which is in the lower range of previous studies. We are able to distinguish between local government and central government employees and show that the latter vote two percentage points less than the former. Controlling for the specific type of educational background does not explain the public–private turnout differential. Finally, the effect of working and voting in the same municipality is larger for local government employees than other citizens. This is in accordance with their greater incentives as they elect their future employer, though the effect size is surprisingly small. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Yosef Bhatti & Kasper Hansen, 2013. "Public employees lining up at the polls—the conditional effect of living and working in the same municipality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 611-629, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:156:y:2013:i:3:p:611-629
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-012-9919-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Marta Curto-Grau, 2017. "Voters’ responsiveness to public employment policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 143-169, January.

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