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Compulsory Voting, Turnout, and Government Spending: Evidence from Austria / Mitchell Hoffman, Gianmarco León, María Lombardi.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Hoffman, Mitchell.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22221.
- NBER working paper series no. w22221
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Other Title:
- Compulsory Voting, Turnout, and Government Spending
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.
- Summary:
- We study a unique quasi-experiment in Austria, where compulsory voting laws are changed across Austria's nine states at different times. Analyzing state and national elections from 1949-2010, we show that compulsory voting laws with weakly enforced fines increase turnout by roughly 10 percentage points. However, we find no evidence that this change in turnout affected government spending patterns (in levels or composition) or electoral outcomes. Individual-level data on turnout and political preferences suggest these results occur because individuals swayed to vote due to compulsory voting are more likely to be non-partisan, have low interest in politics, and be uninformed.
- Notes:
- Print version record
- May 2016.
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