Is mandatory voting better than voluntary voting?

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 ineffi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Games and economic behavior 2009-05, Vol.66 (1), p.275-291
Main Authors: Krasa, Stefan, Polborn, Mattias K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative analysis
Compulsory voting
Costly voting
Costly voting Mandatory voting Compulsory voting Externalities
Economic models
Elections
Externalities
Mandatory voting
Modelling
Studies
Voter behavior
Voting turnout
Welfare economics
Welfare measurement
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0899-8256
1090-2473
DOI:10.1016/j.geb.2008.05.004