We estimate a model of strategic voting by adopting a recently developed inequality-based estimator in a discrete-choice framework. The di¢ culty of identi…cation comes from the fact that preference and voting behavior do not necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence for strategic voters. We obtain partial identi…cation of preference parameters from the restriction that voting for the least-preferred candidate is a weakly dominated strategy. The extent of strategic voting is identi…ed using variation generated by multiple equilibria. Using Japanese general-election data, we …nd a large fraction (68.2%, 82.7%) of strategic voters, only a small fraction (2.2%, 7.4%) of whom voted for a candidate other than the one they most preferred (misaligned voting). Existing empirical literature has not distinguished between the two, estimating misaligned voting instead of strategic voting. Accordingly, while our estimate of strategic voting is high, our estimate of misaligned voting is comparable to previous studies.
We estimate a model of strategic voting by adopting a recently developed inequality-based estimator in a discrete-choice framework. The di¢ culty of identi…cation comes from the fact that preference and voting behavior do not necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence for strategic voters. We obtain partial identi…cation of preference parameters from the restriction that voting for the least-preferred candidate is a weakly dominated strategy. The extent of strategic voting is identi…ed using variation generated by multiple equilibria. Using Japanese general-election data, we …nd a large fraction (68.2%, 82.7%) of strategic voters, only a small fraction (2.2%, 7.4%) of whom voted for a candidate other than the one they most preferred (misaligned voting). Existing empirical literature has not distinguished between the two, estimating misaligned voting instead of strategic voting. Accordingly, while our estimate of strategic voting is high, our estimate of misaligned voting is comparable to previous studies.
Somaini. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.