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Replication Data for "Compulsory Voting, Turnout, and Government Spending: Evidence from Austria"

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for "Compulsory Voting, Turnout, and Government Spending: Evidence from Austria"
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DKY6BS
 
Creator Leon, Gianmarco
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description We study a unique quasi-experiment in Austria, where compulsory voting laws are changed across Austria’s nine states at different times. Analyzing state and national
elections from 1949-2010, we show that compulsory voting laws with weakly enforced
fines increase turnout by roughly 10 percentage points. However, we find no evidence that this change in turnout affected government spending patterns (in levels or composition) or electoral outcomes. Individual-level data on turnout and political preferences suggest these results occur because the impacts of compulsory voting on turnout are larger among those who are non-partisan, who have low interest in politics, and who are uninformed.
 
Subject Social Sciences
compulsory voting, fiscal policy, incentives to vote
 
Contributor Leon, Gianmarco