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Inferring Strategic Voting

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  • Yasutora Watanabe

    (Northwestern University)

  • Kei Kawai

    (Northwestern University)

Abstract

We estimate a model of strategic voting by adopting a recently developed inequality-based estimator in a discrete-choice framework. The difficulty of identification comes from the fact that preference and voting behavior do not necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence for strategic voters. We obtain partial identification of preference parameters from the restriction that voting for the least-preferred candidate is a weakly dominated strategy. The extent of strategic voting is identified using variation generated by multiple equilibria. Using Japanese general-election data, we find a large fraction (68.2%, 82.7%) of strategic voters, only a small fraction (2.2%, 7.4%) of whom voted for a candidate other than the one they most preferred (misaligned voting). Existing empirical literature has not distinguished between the two, estimating misaligned voting instead of strategic voting. Accordingly, while our estimate of strategic voting is high, our estimate of misaligned voting is comparable to previous studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Yasutora Watanabe & Kei Kawai, 2009. "Inferring Strategic Voting," 2009 Meeting Papers 803, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed009:803
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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