IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2453.html

Selective Turnout, Voting Policy, And Partisan Bias: Evidence From Multi-Level Data

Author

Listed:
  • Steven T. Berry

    (Yale University)

  • Christian Cox

    (University of Arizona)

  • Philip A. Haile

    (Yale University)

Abstract

We study voting in general elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our data set includes demographics and turnout of all registered voters for the years 2016Ð2020, as well as vote shares at the precinct and contest level. We estimate a Downsian voting model incorporating rich observed and unobserved heterogeneity at the voter and contest level. We find that voters with high perceived voting costs tend to favor Democrats, as do marginal voters in most districts. Variation in state voting policies accounts for a modest share of overall estimated voting costs but is sufficient to determine the majority party in some years. We also find that many statesÕ district maps favor one party in converting votes to seats. On net these biases favor Republicans. For example, we estimate that winning 50% of votes in every state would give Republicans a 9 percentage point seat advantage in the House.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven T. Berry & Christian Cox & Philip A. Haile, 2025. "Selective Turnout, Voting Policy, And Partisan Bias: Evidence From Multi-Level Data," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2453, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2453
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2025-08/d2453.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Niemi, Richard G. & Deegan, John, 1978. "A Theory of Political Districting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1304-1323, December.
    2. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Mark R. Cullen, 2010. "Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 877-921.
    3. Nevo, Aviv, 2001. "Measuring Market Power in the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(2), pages 307-342, March.
    4. Gerber, Alan, 1998. "Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(2), pages 401-411, June.
    5. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    6. Knight, Brian, 2017. "An Econometric Evaluation of Competing Explanations for the Midterm Gap," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 12(2), pages 205-239, September.
    7. 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.
    8. Thompson, T.S., 1989. "Identification Of Semiparametric Discrete Choice Models," Papers 249, Minnesota - Center for Economic Research.
    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. Onil Boussim, 2025. "Compositional difference-in-differences," Papers 2510.11659, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2026.

    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. 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.
    2. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    3. Daniel Houser & Sandra Ludwig & Thomas Stratmann, 2009. "Does Deceptive Advertising Reduce Political Participation? Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 1011, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    4. Fernanda L L de Leon, 2013. "Adding Ideology to the Equation: New Predictions for Election Results under Compulsory Voting," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 044, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    5. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    6. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2014. "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3073-3114, October.
    7. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    8. Foellmi, Reto & Heim, Rino & Schmid, Lukas, 2022. "Voter Turnout in Concurrent Votes," Economics Working Paper Series 2209, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, revised Sep 2022.
    9. Fink, Alexander, 2012. "The effects of party campaign spending under proportional representation: Evidence from Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 574-592.
    10. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Melvin Stephens Jr., 2013. "Employment, Wages, and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 111-143, October.
    11. Polo, Alberto & Taburet, Arthur & Vo, Quynh-Anh, 2025. "Screening using a menu of contracts: A structural model for lending markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    12. Richard J. Cebula & Christopher M. Duquette & Robert Boylan, 2017. "Panel Data Analysis of Regional Differentials in the Registered Voter Turnout Rate and the Expected Benefits of Voting for Minorities," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(1), pages 29-34, March.
    13. Daniel Houser & Sandra Ludwig & Thomas Stratmann, 2016. "Deception And Political Participation: Theory And Laboratory Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(1), pages 464-484, January.
    14. Robert E. Hogan, 2008. "Policy Responsiveness and Incumbent Reelection in State Legislatures," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 858-873, October.
    15. Neale Mahoney & E. Glen Weyl, 2017. "Imperfect Competition in Selection Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 637-651, July.
    16. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    17. Kei Kawai, 2013. "Campaign Finance in U.S. House Elections," 2013 Meeting Papers 1158, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cage, Julia, 2018. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," CEPR Discussion Papers 12614, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    19. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Andersen, Jørgen Juel & Fiva, Jon H. & Natvik, Gisle James, 2014. "Voting when the stakes are high," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 157-166.
    21. Elena Panova, 2011. "A Passion for Democracy," CIRANO Working Papers 2011s-47, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cwl:cwldpp:2453. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    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.