NDLI: Dissertation abstract: Voting in the laboratory

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Großer, Jens
Copyright Year	2007
Abstract	Almost every week national elections are held somewhere in the world. Many more elections take place at federal and local levels of government. Surely, these are important events to many of us. This thesis aims at providing a better understanding of why and how people vote in elections.Three original modifications of Palfrey and Rosenthal’s (1983) participation game are used to study voter turnout theoretically and experimentally.1 In the basic game, each voter supports (i.e., prefers) one of two exogenous candidates and privately decides between voting at a cost and abstaining (without costs). The candidate who receives more votes wins the election (ties are broken randomly) and each supporter of this candidate receives an equal reward, independent of whether or not she voted.The first study (published in the American Political Science Review 100, pp. 235–248) analyzes the effects of social embeddedness on turnout, assuming that voters may be influenced by observing the decisions of other voters around them (e.g., a family or working place). Our experimental results show that the social context matters: this information increases turnout by more than 50%. The increase is greater when neighbors support the same candidate rather than when they support opponents.The second study investigates the effects of public opinion polls on voter turnout and welfare. Poll releases resolve uncertainty about the level of support for each candidate caused by `floating’ voters, whose preferences change across elections. This information increases turnout in the laboratory by 28–34%, depending on the fraction of floating voters in the electorate. If polls indicate equal levels of support for both candidates—in which case aggregate benefits for society are not affected by the outcome—welfare decreases substantially due to costs from excessive turnout.In the final study, elections are preceded by the competition between two candidates: they simultaneously announce binding policy offers in which some voters can be favored at the expense of others through inclusion and exclusion in budget expenditure (Myerson 1993).2 We observe that policy offers include 33% more voters—yielding a smaller budget share for each—when voting is compulsory rather than voluntary. Moreover, we find evidence of political bonds between voters and long-lived parties.Overall, in all three experiments many subjects strongly react to economic incentives (i.e., benefits, costs, and informational clues), often in line with what is observed outside of the laboratory.
Starting Page	191
Ending Page	192
Page Count	2
File Format	PDF
ISSN	13864157
Journal	Experimental Economics
Volume Number	10
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	15736938
Language	English
Publisher	Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers
Publisher Date	2007-02-08
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Voter turnout Elections Experiments Participation games Game theory Operations Research/Decision Theory Public Finance & Economics Microeconomics Methodology and the History of Economic Thought Economic Theory
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Dissertation abstract: Experiments on fairness and reputation

Dissertation abstract: Exclusion and cooperation in networks

Dissertation abstract: Essays on veto bargaining games

Software for continuous game experiments

Coordination of strategic responses to security threats: Laboratory evidence

Laboratory elections with endogenous turnout: proportional representation versus majoritarian rule

Group polarization in the team dictator game reconsidered

Incremental approaches to establishing trust

Voice matters in a dictator game

Dissertation abstract: Voting in the laboratory

Similar Documents

Dissertation abstract: Experiments on fairness and reputation

Dissertation abstract: Exclusion and cooperation in networks

Dissertation abstract: Essays on veto bargaining games

Software for continuous game experiments

Coordination of strategic responses to security threats: Laboratory evidence

Laboratory elections with endogenous turnout: proportional representation versus majoritarian rule

Group polarization in the team dictator game reconsidered

Incremental approaches to establishing trust

Voice matters in a dictator game

Dissertation abstract: Voting in the laboratory