Compulsory voting and TV news consumption

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bruce, Raphael; Lima, Rafael Costa
• 署名单位: Universidade de Sao Paulo; Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2019.01.006
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 165-179
• 关键词: Compulsory voting; INFORMATION; media; BRAZIL

摘要

Do people acquire more information when they are encouraged to participate in elections? This paper presents empirical evidence on the effects of compulsory voting laws on the consumption of TV news. In Brazil, literate citizens over the age of eighteen are subject to a number of legal penalties if they fail to turn out on election day. This allows us to identify the causal effect of being under a compulsory voting regime on information acquisition. We find that compulsory voting has a significant and substantial positive impact on the probability of an individual to watch Brazil's main TV newscast. Additionally, the effect is stronger for individuals with neutral evaluations of the incumbent president. Our regression discontinuity results are restricted to young voters who just turned eighteen and are robust to different polynomials and bandwidth lengths.