Is mandatory voting better than voluntary voting?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Krasa, Stefan; Polborn, Mattias K.
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2008.05.004
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 275-291
• 关键词: Costly voting; Mandatory voting; Compulsory voting; externalities

摘要

We investigate the welfare effects of policies that increase voter turnout in costly voting models. In a generalized costly voting model, we show that if the electorate is sufficiently large, then increasing voter turnout is generically efficient. Increasing turnout in small elections is only inefficient if the electorate is evenly divided or if there is already almost complete voter participation. Finally, we argue that the effects underlying our results are robust in a large class of endogenous participation models. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.