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Turnout, Political Preferences and Information: Experimental Evidence from Peru

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  • Gianmarco León

Abstract

I combine a field experiment with a change in voting laws reducing the fine for abstention to assess the effects of monetary incentives to encourage voter participation. In a real world election, using individual-level experimental variation in the perceived reduction of the fine for abstention and an objective measure of turnout, I estimate that a 10 percent decrease in the cost of abstention reduces the probability of voting by 2.2 percentage points. As predicted by the model presented, the reduction in turnout is driven by voters who (i) are in the center of the political spectrum, (ii) hold less political information and (iii) have lower subjective value of voting. The increase in abstention does not change aggregate preferences for specific policies, on average. Further, involvement in politics, as measured by the decision to acquire political information, seems to be independent of the level of the fine.

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  • Gianmarco León, 2015. "Turnout, Political Preferences and Information: Experimental Evidence from Peru," Working Papers 691, Barcelona School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:691
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Gaebler, Stefanie & Potrafke, Niklas & Roesel, Felix, 2020. "Compulsory voting and political participation: Empirical evidence from Austria," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Hoffman, Mitchell & León, Gianmarco & Lombardi, María, 2017. "Compulsory voting, turnout, and government spending: Evidence from Austria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 103-115.
    3. Amrita Dillon & GANI ALDASHEV, 2015. "Voter Turnout and Political Rents," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(4), pages 528-552, August.
    4. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León‐Ciliotta & Vivian Roza & Martín Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2019. "Urbanization Patterns, Information Diffusion, and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 323-341, April.
    5. Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni & Patricia Funk & Noam Yuchtman, 2017. "Polls, the Press, and Political Participation: The Effects of Anticipated Election Closeness on Voter Turnout," Working Papers 2017-052, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    6. Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni & Patricia Funk & Felix Schönenberger & Noam Yuchtman, 2024. "Identifying the Effect of Election Closeness on Voter Turnout: Evidence from Swiss Referenda," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 876-914.
    7. Lo Prete, Anna & Revelli, Federico, 2014. "Voter Turnout and City Performance," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201435, University of Turin.
    8. Elisa Mougin, 2021. "Three essays in the political economy of information [Trois essais en économie politique de l’information]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03537938, HAL.
    9. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León & Vivian Roza & Martin Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2017. "Urbanization patterns, social interactions and female voting in rural Paraguay," Economics Working Papers 1589, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    10. Elisa Mougin, 2021. "Three essays in the political economy of information [Trois essais en économie politique de l’information]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03537938, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    voting behavior; incentives to vote; electoral politics; public choice; Peru;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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