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Does voting history matter : analysing persistence in turnout

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  • Kevin Denny
  • Orla Doyle

Abstract

Individuals who vote in one election are also more likely to vote in the next. Modelling the causal relationship between consecutive voting decisions however is intrinsically difficult, as this positive association can exist due to unobserved heterogeneity (i.e. some fixed, but unobserved, characteristics makes voters consistently turn out to vote) or habit formation (i.e. past turnout decisions influence subsequent turnout decisions). This paper overcomes this problem using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine voting behaviour across three elections. Utilising techniques developed in the econometrics literature we find that failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity overestimates the extent of habit formation by almost 100%. Estimating a dynamic model of voter turnout, allowing for unobserved heterogeneity, implies that voting in one election increases the probability of voting in the next by about 13%. This figure is far less than previous studies have identified.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Denny & Orla Doyle, 2005. "Does voting history matter : analysing persistence in turnout," Open Access publications 10197/167, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/167
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    Cited by:

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    3. Yosef Bhatti & Kasper Hansen, 2013. "Public employees lining up at the polls—the conditional effect of living and working in the same municipality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 611-629, September.
    4. Martorana, Marco Ferdinando & Mazza, Isidoro, 2010. "Satisfaction and adaptation in voting behavior: an empirical exploration," MPRA Paper 29135, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2011.
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    6. Jungkunz, Sebastian & Marx, Paul, 2021. "Income changes do not influence political participation: Evidence from comparative panel data," ifso working paper series 11, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    7. Aziz N. Berdiev & Chun-Ping Chang, 2013. "Explaining Voter Turnout in Taiwan Legislative Elections," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 645-661, December.
    8. Khalil, Umair & Mookerjee, Sulagna & Tierney, Ryan, 2019. "Social interactions in voting behavior: Evidence from india," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 158-171.
    9. Sebastian Garmann, 2020. "Political efficacy and the persistence of turnout shocks," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 411-429, November.
    10. Theodoros Skevas & Wyatt Thompson & Scott Brown & Victor E. Cabrera, 2021. "Milk Income over Feed Cost Margin, Margin Protection Program, and Farm Finances for a Sample of Wisconsin Dairies in 2000–2017," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 1638-1657, December.
    11. Panova, Elena, 2015. "A passion for voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 44-65.
    12. Özge Kama & Tolga Aksoy & Hüseyin Taştan, 2022. "Economic Adversity and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Turkish Parliamentary Elections," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 799-821, September.
    13. Lindgren, Karl-Oskar & Oskarsson, Sven & Persson, Mikael, 2017. "Can increased education help reduce the political opportunity gap?," Working Paper Series 2017:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    14. Nolan, Anne, 2010. "A dynamic analysis of household car ownership," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 446-455, July.
    15. Bělín, Matěj, 2020. "Time-invariant regressors under fixed effects: Simple identification via a proxy variable," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    16. Bechtel, Michael M. & Hangartner, Dominik & Schmid, Lukas, 2018. "Compulsory voting, habit formation, and political participation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89714, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Sinisa Hadziabdic & Lucio Baccaro, 2020. "A Switch or a Process? Disentangling the Effects of Union Membership on Political Attitudes in Switzerland and the UK," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 466-499, July.
    18. Martorana, Marco F. & Mazza, Isidoro, 2012. "Adaptive voting: an empirical analysis of participation and choice," MPRA Paper 36165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Thomas Fujiwara & Kyle C. Meng & Tom Vogl, 2013. "Estimating Habit Formation in Voting," NBER Working Papers 19721, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Sebastian Jungkunz & Paul Marx, 2021. "Income Changes Do Not Influence Political Participation: Evidence from Comparative Panel Data," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1129, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    21. Jessen, Jonas & Kühnle, Daniel & Wagner, Markus, 2021. "Downstream Effects of Voting on Turnout and Political Preferences: Long-Run Evidence from the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 14296, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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