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Taxes and Turnout: When the Decisive Voter Stays at Home

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  • Felix Bierbrauer
  • Aleh Tsyvinski
  • Nicolas Werquin

Abstract

We develop a model of political competition with endogenous turnout and endogenous platforms. Parties trade off incentivizing their supporters to vote and discouraging the supporters of the competing party from voting. We show that the latter objective is particularly pronounced for a party with an edge in the political race. Thus, an increase in political support for a party may lead to the adoption of policies favoring its opponents so as to asymmetrically demobilize them. We study the implications for the political economy of redistributive taxation. Equilibrium tax policy is typically aligned with the interest of voters who are demobilized.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Bierbrauer & Aleh Tsyvinski & Nicolas Werquin, 2021. "Taxes and Turnout: When the Decisive Voter Stays at Home," CESifo Working Paper Series 8954, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8954
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin F. Hellwig, 2021. "Social Choice in Large Populations with Single-Peaked Preferences," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2021_18, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Berliant, Marcus & Gouveia, Miguel, 2022. "On the Political Economy of Nonlinear Income Taxation," MPRA Paper 113140, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Alberto Grillo, 2023. "Political alienation and voter mobilization in elections," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(3), pages 515-531, June.

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