Compulsory Voting, Habit Formation, and Political Participation

Bechtel, Michael M.; Hangartner, Dominik; Schmid, Lukas

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00701

Cited by 56 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Two strands of related literature study (i) habit formation in voting, potentially picking up some of the same mechanisms that are also relevant when people are frequently exposed to decisions about propositions (see, e.g.,Bechtel, Hangartner and Schmid 2018) and (ii) political socialization (see, e.g.,Slotwinski and Stutzer (2018) in the context of female suffrage).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Overstrained citizens? The number of ballot propositions and the quality of the decision process in direct democracy

Stutzer

Baltensperger

Meier

2019

European Journal of Political Economy

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Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

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confidence: 99%

Overstrained citizens? The number of ballot propositions and the quality of the decision process in direct democracy

Stutzer

Baltensperger

Meier

2019

European Journal of Political Economy

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“…We further show that the vast majority of additional votes caused by marginal fine increases are blank/invalid. Our paper also complements the empirical literature on the effects of compulsory voting laws (Funk, 2007;Fowler, 2013;Cepaluni and Hidalgo, 2016;Hoffman et al, 2017;Bechtel et al, 2018). Previous research has largely focused on the extensive margin effects of the introduction or dismantling of compulsory voting regimes on turnout and electoral outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

How Effective Are Monetary Incentives to Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Policy

2019

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We combine two natural experiments, multiple empirical strategies and administrative data to study voters' response to marginal changes to the fine for electoral abstention in Peru. A smaller fine leads to a robust decrease in voter turnout. However, the drop in turnout caused by a full fine reduction is less than 20% the size of that caused by an exemption from compulsory voting, indicating the predominance of the non-monetary incentives provided by the mandate to vote. Additionally, almost 90% of the votes generated by a marginally larger fine are blank or invalid, lending support to the hypothesis of rational abstention. Higher demand for information and larger long-run effects following an adjustment to the value of the fine point to the existence of informational frictions that limit adaptation to institutional changes.

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“…They also found that participating on election day led voters to contacting and communing (Bratton et al, 2005, p. 297). Bechtel et al (2018) found that the long-term and spillover effects of compulsory voting in the Swiss canton of Vaud (1900Vaud ( -1970 increased turnout in federal referendums by 30 percentage points.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%