Altruistic Punishment in Elections

Arbeitspapier

Altruistic punishment is a fundamental driver for cooperation in human interactions. In this paper, we expand our understanding of this form of costly punishment to help explain a puzzle of voting behavior: why do people who are indifferent between two potential policy outcomes of an election participate in large-scale elections when voting is costly? Using a simple voting experiment, we show that many voters are willing to engage in voting as a form of punishment, even when voting is costly and the voter has no monetary stake in the election outcome. In our sample, we observe that at least fourteen percent of individuals are willing to incur a cost and vote against candidates who broke their electoral promises, even when they have no pecuniary interest in the election outcome.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 4945

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Subject: voting ; elections ; altruistic punishment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Aimone, Jason A. ; Butera, Luigi ; Stratmann, Thomas
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/102157
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET