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Are voters rational?

Author

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  • Lyytikainen, Teemu
  • Tukiainen, Janne
Abstract
We test whether a voter’s decision to cast a vote depends on its probability of affecting the election outcome. Using exogenous variation arising at population cutoffs determining council sizes in Finnish municipal elections, we show that larger council size increases both pivotal probabilities and turnout. These effects are statistically significant, fairly large and robust. Finally, we use a novel instrumental variables design to show that the jumps in the pivotal probabilities are the likely candidate for explaining the increase in turnout, rather than the other observed simultaneous jumps at the council size cutoffs. Moreover, our results indicate that turnout responds only to within-party pivotal probabilities, perhaps because they are more salient to the voters than the between-party ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Lyytikainen, Teemu & Tukiainen, Janne, 2019. "Are voters rational?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100217, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:100217
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    Cited by:

    1. Britto, Diogo G.C. & Fiorin, Stefano, 2020. "Corruption and legislature size: Evidence from Brazil," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Salomo Hirvonen & Maarit Lassander & Lauri Sääksvuori & Janne Tukiainen, 2023. "Who is mobilized to vote by short text messages? Evidence from a nationwide field experiment with young voters," Discussion Papers 157, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    3. Konstantinos Matakos & Riikka Savolainen & Orestis Troumpounis & Janne Tukiainen & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2024. "Electoral Institutions and Intraparty Cohesion," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 883-916.
    4. Simon Lapointe & Tuukka Saarimaa & Janne Tukiainen, 2018. "Effects of municipal mergers on voter turnout," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 512-530, July.
    5. Christos Mavridis & Marco Serena, 2019. "Complete Information Pivotal-Voter Model with Asymmetric Group Size and Asymmetric Beneï¬ ts," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2019-17_2, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    6. Andrew C. Eggers & Ronny Freier & Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini, 2018. "Regression Discontinuity Designs Based on Population Thresholds: Pitfalls and Solutions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 210-229, January.
    7. Salomo Hirvonen & Jerome Schafer & Janne Tukiainen, 2022. "Policy Feedback and Civic Engagement: Evidence from the Finnish Basic Income Experiment," Discussion Papers 155, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    8. Mavridis, Christos & Serena, Marco, 2021. "Complete information pivotal-voter model with asymmetric group size and asymmetric benefits," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    9. Kuliomina, Jekaterina, 2021. "Do personal characteristics of councilors affect municipal budget allocation?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    10. De Santo, Alessia & Le Maux, Benoît, 2023. "On the optimal size of legislatures: An illustrated literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    local government elections; instrumental variables; rational voting; regression discontinuity design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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