Voter Motivation and the Quality of Democratic Choice

Autor(en)

Lydia Mechtenberg, Jean-Robert Tyran

Abstrakt

The efficiency of committee voting and referenda with common-interest issues critically depends on voter motivation, i.e., on voters' willingness to cast an informed vote. If voters are motivated, voting may result in smart choices because of information aggregation but if voters remain ignorant, delegating decision making to an expert may yield better outcomes. We experimentally study a common-interest situation in which we vary voters' information cost and the competence of the expert. We find that voters are more motivated to collect information than predicted by standard theory and that voter motivation is higher when subjects demand to make choices by voting than when voting is imposed on subjects.

Organisation(en)

Wiener Zentrum für Experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung, Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre

Externe Organisation(en)

Universität Hamburg, University of Copenhagen, Centre for Economic and Policy Research

Journal

Games and Economic Behavior

Band

116

Seiten

241-259

Anzahl der Seiten

19

ISSN

0899-8256

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2018.12.002

Publikationsdatum

01-2019

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

502045 Verhaltensökonomie, 502027 Politische Ökonomie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Economics and Econometrics, Finance

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/voter-motivation-and-the-quality-of-democratic-choice(f87b7e45-ecf2-4d15-aeb6-05b8620765f6).html