Arbeitspapier
Compulsory Voting, Voter Turnout and Asymmetrical Habit-formation
We examine whether compulsory voting influences habit-formation in voting. In Austria, some states temporarily introduced compulsory voting in national elections. We exploit border municipalities across two states that differ in compulsory voting legislation using a difference-in-differences and a difference-in-discontinuity approach. We investigate the long-term effects of compulsory voting on voter turnout, invalid votes and vote shares for left-wing and right-wing parties. The results show that compulsory voting increased voter turnout by 3.4 percentage points. When compulsory voting was abolished, voter turnout, however, returned to the pre-compulsory voting level. The results also do not suggest that compulsory voting influenced invalid votes and vote shares of left-wing and right-wing parties asymmetrically. We conclude that compulsory voting was not habit-forming.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 6764
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Capitalist Systems: General
- Subject
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compulsory voting
voter turnout
party vote shares
difference-in-discontinuity design
habit-formation
Austria
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Gäbler, Stefanie
Potrafke, Niklas
Rösel, Felix
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (where)
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Munich
- (when)
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2017
- Handle
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
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ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Gäbler, Stefanie
- Potrafke, Niklas
- Rösel, Felix
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Time of origin
- 2017
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