Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-trf7k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-13T22:37:52.438Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Costly voting: a large-scale real effort experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Marco Faravelli Open the ORCID record for Marco Faravelli [Opens in a new window] ,
Kenan Kalayci  and
Carlos Pimienta
Marco Faravelli*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Kenan Kalayci*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Carlos Pimienta*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, UNSW Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
*
m.faravelli@uq.edu.au
k.kalayci@uq.edu.au
c.pimienta@unsw.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We test the turnout predictions of the canonical costly voting model through a large-scale, real effort experiment. We recruit 1200 participants through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and employ a 2×2 between subjects design encompassing small (N=30) and large (N=300) elections, as well as close and lopsided. As predicted, participants with a higher opportunity cost are less likely to vote; turnout rate decreases as the electorate size increases in lopsided elections and increases the closer the election is in large elections. However, in the large lopsided election the majority turns out to vote at a higher rate than the minority. We rationalize these results as the equilibrium outcome of a model in which voters obtain a small non-monetary utility if they vote and their party wins.

Keywords

Costly votingTurnoutReal effort experimentAmazon’s Mechanical Turk

JEL classification

C93: Field Experiments D72: Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 468 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-019-09620-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

Agranov, M, Goeree, JK, Romero, J, & Yariv, L (2018). What makes voters turn out: The effects of polls and beliefs. Journal of the European Economic Association, 16(3), 825–856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamini, Y, & Hochberg, Y (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B (Methodological), 57(1), 289–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernhard, H, Fischbacher, U, & Fehr, E (2006). Parochial altruism in humans. Nature, 442(7105), 912.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blais, A (2000). To vote or not to vote: The merits and limits of rational choice theory, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Börgers, T (2004). Costly voting. American Economic Review, 94(1), 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callander, S (2007). Bandwagons and momentum in sequential voting. The Review of Economic Studies, 74(3), 653–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callander, S (2008). Majority rule when voters like to win. Games and Economic Behavior, 64(2), 393–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cason, T, & Mui, V-L (2005). Uncertainty and resistance to reform in laboratory participation games. European Journal of Political Economy, 21(3), 707–737.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castanheira, M (2003). Victory margins and the paradox of voting. European Journal of Political Economy, 19(4), 817–841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaudhuri, A (2011). Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: A selective survey of the literature. Experimental Economics, 14(1), 47–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, J-K, & Bowles, S (2007). The coevolution of parochial altruism and war. Science, 318(5850), 636–640.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coate, S, Conlin, M, & Moro, A (2008). The performance of pivotal-voter models in small-scale elections: Evidence from Texas liquor referenda. Journal of Public Economics, 92(3–4), 582–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, R, DeJong, DV, Forsythe, R, & Ross, TW (1996). Cooperation without reputation: Experimental evidence from Prisoner’s dilemma games. Games and Economic Behavior, 12, 187–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dannenberg, A, Riechmann, T, Sturm, B, & Vogt, C (2012). Inequality aversion and the house money effect. Experimental Economics, 15(3), 440–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DellaVigna, S, & Pope, D (2017). What motivates effort? Evidence and expert forecasts. The Review of Economic Studies, 85(2), 1029–1069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, A (1957). An economic theory of democracy, New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Duffy, J, & Tavits, M (2008). Beliefs and voting decisions: A test of the pivotal voting model. American Journal of Political Science, 52(3), 603–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evren, Ö (2012). Altruism and voting: A large-turnout result that does not rely on civic duty or cooperative behavior. Journal of Economic Theory, 147(6), 2124–2157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faravelli, M, Man, P, & Walsh, R (2015). Mandate and paternalism: A theory of large elections. Games and Economic Behavior, 93, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feddersen, TJ, & Sandroni, A (2006). A theory of participation in elections. American Economic Review, 96(4), 1271–1282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E, & Gaechter, S (2000). Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90, 980–994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaechter, S, Huang, L, & Sefton, M (2016). Combining real effort with induced effort costs: The ball-catching task. Experimental Economics, 19, 687–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, A., Hoffman, M., Morgan, J., & Raymond, C. (2017). One in a million: Field experiments on perceived closeness of the election and voter turnout, Discussion paper, National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, D, & Prowse, V (2012). A structural analysis of disappointment aversion in a real effort competition. American Economic Review, 102(1), 469–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goeree, J, & Großer, J (2007). Welfare reducing polls. Economic Theory, 31(1), 51–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goeree, J, Holt, C, & Palfrey, T (2016). Quantal response equilibrium: A stochastic theory of games, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Grosser, J, & Schram, A (2006). Neighborhood information exchange and voter participation: An experimental study. American Political Science Review, 100(2), 235–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosser, J, & Schram, A (2010). Public opinion polls, voter turnout, and welfare: An experimental study. American Journal of Political Science, 54(3), 700–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G (2007). House money effects in public good experiments: Comment. Experimental Economics, 10, 429–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrera, H, Morelli, M, & Palfrey, TR (2014). Turnout and power sharing. Economic Journal, 124, F131–F162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, JJ, Rand, DG, & Zeckhauser, RJ (2011). The online laboratory: Conducting experiments in a real labor market. Experimental Economics, 14(3), 399–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kartal, M (2014). A comparative welfare analysis of electoral systems with endogenous turnout. Economic Journal, 125(587), 1369–1392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledyard, J. O. (1995). Public goods: A survey of experimental research. In Kagel, J. H. & Roth, A. E. (Eds.), The handbook of experimental economics (pp. 111–194). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Levine, DK, & Palfrey, TR (2007). The paradox of voter participation?. A Laboratory Study, American Political Science Review, 101(1), 143–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, W, & Suri, S (2012). Conducting behavioral research on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Behavioral Research, 44, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKelvey, RD, & Palfrey, TR (1995). Quantal response equilibria for normal form games. Games and Economic Behavior, 10(1), 6–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, RB (1991). Groups in rational turnout models. American Journal of Political Science, 35(3), 758–776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, RB, & Ou, K (2015). What motivates bandwagon voting behavior: Altruism or a desire to win?. European Journal of Political Economy, 40, 224–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, R. B., & Tyran, J.-R. (2012). Ethical versus selfish motivations and turnout in small and large electorates, New York University, Working Paper.Google Scholar
Myatt, D. P. (2012). A rational choice theory of voter turnout, Working Paper, London Business School.Google Scholar
Palfrey, TR, & Rosenthal, H (1983). A strategic calculus of voting. Public Choice, 41(1), 7–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palfrey, TR, & Rosenthal, H (1985). Voter participation and strategic uncertainty. American Political Science Review, 79(1), 62–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riker, WH, & Ordeshook, PC (1968). A theory of the calculus of voting. American Political Science Review, 62(1), 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schram, A, & Sonnemans, J (1996). Voter turnout as a participation game: An experimental investigation. International Journal of Game Theory, 25, 385–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shachar, R, & Nalebuff, B (1999). Follow the leader: Theory and evidence on political participation. American Economic Review, 89(3), 525–547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheremeta, R, & Price, C (2015). Endowment origin, demographic effects and individual preferences in contests. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 24, 597–619.Google Scholar
Sheremeta, RM (2010). Experimental comparison of multi-stage and one-stage contests. Games and Economic Behavior, 68(2), 731–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheremeta, RM (2018). Behavior in group contests: A review of experimental research. Journal of Economic Surveys, 32(3), 683–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonnemans, J, Schram, A, & Offerman, T (1998). Public good provision and public bad prevention: The effect of framing. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 34(1), 143–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stango, V, & Zinman, J (2009). Exponential growth bias and household finance. The Journal of Finance, 64(6), 2807–2849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suri, S, & Watts, DJ (2011). Cooperation and contagion in Web-based, networked public goods experiments. PLoS ONE, 6(3), e16836.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In Worchel, S. Austin, W. (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Taylor, C, & Yildirim, H (2010). A unified analysis of rational voting with private values and group-specific costs. Games and Economic Behavior, 70(2), 457–471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Faravelli et al. supplementary material

Faravelli et. al. supplementary material
Download Faravelli et al. supplementary material(File)
File 508.5 KB