Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, Uppsala University
No 2009:14:
The effect of information on voting behavior
Mattias Nordin ()
Abstract: This paper investigates how information affect voting
behaviour. There exist a large literature suggesting that uninformed voters
can use informational shortcuts or cues to vote as if they were informed.
This paper tests this hypothesis using unique Swedish individual survey
data on the preferences of both politicians and voters. I find that
uninformed voters are significantly worse than informed voters at voting
for their most preferred politicians. This suggests that uninformed voters
can not make up for their lack of information using shortcuts. Furthermore,
the errors uninformed voters make do not cancel out in large elections.
Estimates suggest that the ruling majorities would have switched in almost
5% of Swedish municipalities had all voters been fully informed. The
effects are estimated with both parametric and nonparametric estimation
techniques.
Keywords: Voting behaviour; Citizen candidates; Information; Cues; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: D70; D80; H71; (follow links to similar papers)
35 pages, September 18, 2009
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