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.
- Sprache
-
Englisch
- Erschienen in
-
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 6764
- Klassifikation
-
Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Capitalist Systems: General
- Thema
-
compulsory voting
voter turnout
party vote shares
difference-in-discontinuity design
habit-formation
Austria
- Ereignis
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (wer)
-
Gäbler, Stefanie
Potrafke, Niklas
Rösel, Felix
- Ereignis
-
Veröffentlichung
- (wer)
-
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (wo)
-
Munich
- (wann)
-
2017
- Handle
- Letzte Aktualisierung
-
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ
Datenpartner
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.
Objekttyp
- Arbeitspapier
Beteiligte
- Gäbler, Stefanie
- Potrafke, Niklas
- Rösel, Felix
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Entstanden
- 2017