IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v142y2023icp381-410.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Abstention and informedness in nonpartisan elections

Author

Listed:
  • Meyer, Jacob
  • Rentschler, Lucas

Abstract

We develop and experimentally test a model of voter information acquisition in nonpartisan elections, both with and without abstention. We theoretically demonstrate that allowing for abstention can increase information acquisition, provided the cost of information is not too low. Our experimental data find that voters are less responsive than predicted to increases in the cost of information. As a result, the cost required to yield higher levels of informedness when abstention is allowed is higher than predicted. Our data are well explained by agent quantal response equilibrium, which accounts for the fact that uninformed voters are often observed to vote, even when it is not rational to do so.

Suggested Citation

  • Meyer, Jacob & Rentschler, Lucas, 2023. "Abstention and informedness in nonpartisan elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 381-410.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:142:y:2023:i:c:p:381-410
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2023.08.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089982562300132X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2023.08.013?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. Feddersen, Timothy J. & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1999. "Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse Preferences," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 381-398, June.
    2. Sayantan Ghosal & Ben Lockwood, 2009. "Costly voting when both information and preferences differ: is turnout too high or too low?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 33(1), pages 25-50, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Großer, Jens & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2019. "Candidate Entry and Political Polarization: An Experimental Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 209-225, February.
    5. Morton, Rebecca B. & Piovesan, Marco & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2019. "The dark side of the vote: Biased voters, social information, and information aggregation through majority voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 461-481.
    6. David Dreyer Lassen, 2005. "The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 103-118, January.
    7. Richard Mckelvey & Thomas Palfrey, 1998. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Extensive Form Games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 9-41, June.
    8. Jens Großer & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2014. "Candidate Entry and Political Polarization: An Antimedian Voter Theorem," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 127-143, January.
    9. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    10. Levine, David K. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2007. "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 143-158, February.
    11. Großer, Jens & Seebauer, Michael, 2016. "The curse of uninformed voting: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 205-226.
    12. McKelvey, Richard D. & Patty, John W., 2006. "A theory of voting in large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 155-180, October.
    13. Marcelo Tyszler & Arthur Schram, 2016. "Information and strategic voting," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 360-381, June.
    14. Martinelli, Cesar, 2006. "Would rational voters acquire costly information?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 225-251, July.
    15. César Martinelli, 2007. "Rational ignorance and voting behavior," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 35(3), pages 315-335, February.
    16. Pietro Ortoleva & Erik Snowberg, 2015. "Overconfidence in Political Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 504-535, February.
    17. David Strömberg, 2004. "Radio's Impact on Public Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 189-221.
    18. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    19. Gersbach, Hans, 1992. "Allocation of information by majority decisions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 259-268, July.
    20. Oliveros, Santiago, 2013. "Abstention, ideology and information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 871-902.
    21. Roth, Alvin E, 1994. "Lets Keep the Con out of Experimental Econ.: A Methodological Note," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 279-289.
    22. Paolo Ghirardato & Jonathan N. Katz, 2006. "Indecision Theory: Weight of Evidence and Voting Behavior," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(3), pages 379-399, August.
    23. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2005. "An Explanation of Anomalous Behavior in Models of Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(2), pages 201-213, May.
    24. Lim, Claire S.H. & Snyder, James M., 2015. "Is more information always better? Party cues and candidate quality in U.S. judicial elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 107-123.
    25. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 2012. "Voluntary voting: Costs and benefits," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(6), pages 2083-2123.
    26. Marco Battaglini & Rebecca B. Morton & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2008. "Information Aggregation and Strategic Abstention in Large Laboratory Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 194-200, May.
    27. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Duffy, John & Kim, SunTak, 2017. "Voting with endogenous information acquisition: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 316-338.
    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. Herrera, Helios & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & McMurray, Joseph C., 2019. "Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    2. Cesar Martinelli & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2017. "Communication and Information in Games of Collective Decision: A Survey of Experimental Results," Working Papers 1065, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    3. Bandyopadhyay, Siddhartha & Deb, Moumita & Lohse, Johannes & McDonald, Rebecca, 2024. "The Swing Voter’s Curse Revisited: Transparency’s Impact on Committee Voting," Working Papers 0744, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    4. Mechtenberg, Lydia & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2019. "Voter motivation and the quality of democratic choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 241-259.
    5. Großer, Jens & Seebauer, Michael, 2016. "The curse of uninformed voting: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 205-226.
    6. Quement, Mark T. Le & Marcin, Isabel, 2020. "Communication and voting in heterogeneous committees: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 449-468.
    7. Mengel, Friederike & Rivas, Javier, 2017. "Common value elections with private information and informative priors: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 190-221.
    8. Sourav Bhattacharya & John Duffy & Sun-Tak Kim, 2015. "Voting with Endogenous Information Acquisition: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 151602, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    9. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Duffy, John & Kim, SunTak, 2017. "Voting with endogenous information acquisition: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 316-338.
    10. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    11. Marcelo Tyszler & Arthur Schram, 2013. "Strategic Voting in Heterogeneous Electorates: An Experimental Study," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-24, November.
    12. Mark T. Le Quement & Isabel Marcin, 2016. "Communication and voting in heterogeneous committees: An experimental study," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Oct 2016.
    13. Marcelo Tyszler & Arthur Schram, 2016. "Information and strategic voting," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 360-381, June.
    14. Sun, Junze & Schram, Arthur & Sloof, Randolph, 2021. "Elections under biased candidate endorsements — an experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 141-158.
    15. Guha, Brishti, 2022. "Ambiguity aversion, group size, and deliberation: Costly information and decision accuracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 115-133.
    16. Santiago Oliveros & Felix Várdy, 2015. "Demand for Slant: How Abstention Shapes Voters' Choice of News Media," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1327-1368, September.
    17. Helios Herrera & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Joseph C McMurray, 2019. "The Marginal Voter's Curse," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3137-3153.
    18. Pedro Robalo, 2021. "Political Mobilization in the Laboratory: The Role of Norms and Communication," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-40, March.
    19. Dittmann, Ingolf & Kübler, Dorothea & Maug, Ernst & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2014. "Why votes have value: Instrumental voting with overconfidence and overestimation of others' errors," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 17-38.
    20. Antonio Merlo & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2018. "External validation of voter turnout models by concealed parameter recovery," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 297-314, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mandatory voting; Information acquisition; Costly voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    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:eee:gamebe:v:142:y:2023:i:c:p:381-410. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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.