How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates / Caroline Le Pennec, Vincent Pons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Le Pennec, Caroline.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Pons, Vincent.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w26572.

NBER working paper series no. w26572

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2019.

Summary:

We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in ten countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences, and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the consistency between vote intention and vote choice of respondents surveyed at different points before, and then again after, the election, and show that 17% to 29% of voters make up their mind during the final two months of campaigns. Changes in vote choice are concomitant to shifts in issues voters find most important and in beliefs about candidates, and they generate sizeable swings in vote shares. In contrast, policy preferences remain remarkably stable throughout the campaign. Finally, we use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, in which candidates themselves communicate with voters, and of shocks such as natural and technological disasters which, by contrast, occur independently from the campaign. We do not find any effect of either type of event on vote choice formation, suggesting that information received throughout the campaign from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens, is more impactful.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2019.