TY - JOUR
T1 - Voter Turnout and Preference Aggregation
AU - Kawai, Kei
AU - Toyama, Yuta
AU - Watanabe, Yasutora
N1 - Funding Information:
* Kawai: Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley (email: kei@berkeley.edu); Toyama: Graduate School of Economics, Waseda University (email: yuta.toyama@gmail.com); Watanabe: Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo (email: yasutora.watanabe@gmail.com). John Asker was coeditor for this article. We thank Heski Bar-Isaac, Alessandra Casella, Hulya Eraslan, Matias Iaryczower, Karam Kang, Alessandro Lizzeri, Antonio Merlo, Eduardo Morales, Kris Ramsay, Raul Sanchez de la Sierra, Laura Silver, Francesco Trebbi, and Chamna Yoon for helpful comments. We acknowledge financial support from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Government under the General Research Fund Projects 16506015 and 16528116 and the Japan Center for Economic Research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - We study how voter turnout affects the aggregation of preferences in elections. Under voluntary voting, election outcomes disproportionately aggregate the preferences of voters with low voting cost and high preference intensity. We show identification of the correlation structure among preferences, costs, and perceptions of voting efficacy, and explore how the correlation affects preference aggregation. Using 2004 US presidential election data, we find that young, low-income, less-educated, and minority voters are underrepresented. All of these groups tend to prefer Democrats, except for the less educated. Democrats would have won the majority of the electoral votes if all eligible voters had turned out.
AB - We study how voter turnout affects the aggregation of preferences in elections. Under voluntary voting, election outcomes disproportionately aggregate the preferences of voters with low voting cost and high preference intensity. We show identification of the correlation structure among preferences, costs, and perceptions of voting efficacy, and explore how the correlation affects preference aggregation. Using 2004 US presidential election data, we find that young, low-income, less-educated, and minority voters are underrepresented. All of these groups tend to prefer Democrats, except for the less educated. Democrats would have won the majority of the electoral votes if all eligible voters had turned out.
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U2 - 10.1257/mic.20190063
DO - 10.1257/mic.20190063
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85126641192
SN - 1945-7669
VL - 13
SP - 548
EP - 586
JO - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
JF - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
IS - 4
ER -