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The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Author(s) -
Lassen David Dreyer
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00113.x
Subject(s) - turnout , referendum , natural experiment , decentralization , voter turnout , propensity score matching , public economics , survey data collection , political science , voting , empirical research , empirical evidence , estimation , psychology , economics , law , medicine , statistics , politics , philosophy , mathematics , management , epistemology , pathology
Do better‐informed people vote more? Recent formal theories of voter turnout emphasize a positive effect of being informed on the propensity to vote, but the possibility of endogenous information acquisition makes estimation of causal effects difficult. I estimate the causal effects of being informed on voter turnout using unique data from a natural experiment Copenhagen referendum on decentralization. Four of fifteen districts carried out a pilot project, exogenously making pilot city district voters more informed about the effects of decentralization. Empirical estimates based on survey data confirm a sizeable and statistically significant causal effect of being informed on the propensity to vote .