IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v194y2023i3d10.1007_s11127-023-01045-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of voter turnout on referendum outcomes: evidence from Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Vincent Munley

    (Lehigh University)

  • Abian Garcia-Rodriguez

    (Economic and Social Research Institute)

  • Paul Redmond

    (Economic and Social Research Institute)

Abstract

We estimate the causal effect of voter turnout on referendum outcomes in Ireland using a newly created dataset that links 25 years of constituency-level referendum results to a variety of demographic and economic characteristics, as well as daily rainfall amounts. Our instrumental variables methodology uses rainfall as an instrument for voter turnout to overcome issues of endogeneity. By exploiting Ireland’s extensive experience with referendums, we are the first to explore the heterogeneous effects of turnout by referendum type (social issues versus regime-related issues). We find that a one-percentage-point increase in turnout is associated with a 1.6-percentage-point increase in support for progressively liberal social policies, which include issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. For regime-related issues, such as EU economic treaties, we find no statistically significant effect of voter turnout on referendum outcomes. Our finding that turnout benefits socially progressive policies is consistent with a related strand of literature for general elections that indicates higher turnout benefits left-wing political parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincent Munley & Abian Garcia-Rodriguez & Paul Redmond, 2023. "The impact of voter turnout on referendum outcomes: evidence from Ireland," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 194(3), pages 369-393, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:194:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-023-01045-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-023-01045-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-023-01045-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-023-01045-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September.
    2. Matsusaka, John G & Palda, Filip, 1999. "Voter Turnout: How Much Can We Explain?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 98(3-4), pages 431-446, March.
    3. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    4. Wang, Wenjie, 2021. "Wild Bootstrap for Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments and Few Clusters," MPRA Paper 106227, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Huan Gong & Cynthia L. Rogers, 2014. "Does Voter Turnout Influence School Bond Elections?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(1), pages 247-262, July.
    6. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    7. Matsusaka, John G, 1993. "Election Closeness and Voter Turnout: Evidence from California Ballot Propositions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 313-334, August.
    8. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2013. "It’s the weather, stupid! Individual participation in collective May Day demonstrations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 251-271, June.
    9. Cox, Gary W. & Munger, Michael C., 1989. "Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1982 U.S. House Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 217-231, March.
    10. John G. Matsusaka, 2018. "Public policy and the initiative and referendum: a survey with some new evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 107-143, January.
    11. Richard Cebula, 2008. "Influence of the Number of Statewide Referenda Involving Emotionally-Charged Issues on Voter Turnout, 2006," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 36(4), pages 383-393, December.
    12. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:1:y:2014:p:247-262 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Fowler, Anthony, 2013. "Electoral and Policy Consequences of Voter Turnout: Evidence from Compulsory Voting in Australia," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 8(2), pages 159-182, February.
    14. Hansford, Thomas G. & Gomez, Brad T., 2010. "Estimating the Electoral Effects of Voter Turnout," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(2), pages 268-288, May.
    15. Serguei Kaniovski & Dennis Mueller, 2006. "Community size, heterogeneity and voter turnouts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 399-415, December.
    16. Lind, Jo Thori, 2020. "Rainy day politics. An instrumental variables approach to the effect of parties on political outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    17. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    18. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    19. Isaiah Andrews & James H. Stock & Liyang Sun, 2019. "Weak Instruments in Instrumental Variables Regression: Theory and Practice," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 727-753, August.
    20. John G. Matsusaka, 2005. "Direct Democracy Works," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 185-206, Spring.
    21. Thomas Fujiwara & Kyle Meng & Tom Vogl, 2016. "Habit Formation in Voting: Evidence from Rainy Elections," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 160-188, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lacombe, Donald J. & Coats, R. Morris & Shughart II, William F. & Karahan, Gökhan, 2016. "Corruption and Voter Turnout: A Spatial Econometric Approach," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 46(2), December.
    2. Lind, Jo Thori, 2020. "Rainy day politics. An instrumental variables approach to the effect of parties on political outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Niklas Potrafke & Felix Roesel, 2020. "Opening hours of polling stations and voter turnout: Evidence from a natural experiment," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 133-163, January.
    4. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Share," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-10, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    5. Richard J. Cebula & Gigi M. Alexander, 2017. "Female Labor Force Participation and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the American Presidential Elections," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 8(2).
    6. Gebhard Kirchgässner & Tobias Schulz, 2005. "Expected Closeness or Mobilisation: Why Do Voters Go to the Polls? Empirical Results for Switzerland, 1981 – 1999," CESifo Working Paper Series 1387, CESifo.
    7. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 529-555, July.
    8. João Amaro de Matos & Pedro Barros, 2004. "Social Norms and the Paradox of Elections’ Turnout," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 239-255, October.
    9. Fink, Alexander, 2012. "The effects of party campaign spending under proportional representation: Evidence from Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 574-592.
    10. Hoffman, Mitchell & León, Gianmarco & Lombardi, María, 2017. "Compulsory voting, turnout, and government spending: Evidence from Austria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 103-115.
    11. Hager, Anselm & Hensel, Lukas & Hermle, Johannes & Roth, Christopher, 2020. "Does Party Competition Affect Political Activism?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 488, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    12. Mariella Gonzales & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Luis R. Martínez, 2022. "How Effective Are Monetary Incentives to Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Policy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 293-326, January.
    13. Amrita Dillon & GANI ALDASHEV, 2015. "Voter Turnout and Political Rents," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(4), pages 528-552, August.
    14. Peter Calcagno & Christopher Westley, 2008. "An institutional analysis of voter turnout: the role of primary type and the expressive and instrumental voting hypotheses," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 94-110, June.
    15. Richard J. Cebula, 2008. "Does Direct Democracy Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence from the 2004 General Election," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(4), pages 629-644, October.
    16. Richard J. Cebula, 2007. "PAC Congressional Election Campaign Contributions and Other Political or Economic Influences on the Voter Participation Rate," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 399-412, April.
    17. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th. & Panagiotidis, Theodore & Roumanias, Costas, 2021. "State-dependent effect on voter turnout: The case of US House elections," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 753-765.
    18. Luigi M. Solivetti, 2020. "Political partisanship versus turnout in Italy’s 2016 referendum," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 709-734, June.
    19. Scott Basinger & Damon Cann & Michael Ensley, 2012. "Voter response to congressional campaigns: new techniques for analyzing aggregate electoral behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 771-792, March.
    20. Aggeborn, Linuz, 2016. "Voter turnout and the size of government," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 29-40.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voter turnout; Referendums; Rainfall; Instrumental variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • K16 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Election Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:194:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-023-01045-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.