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Does voting history matter? Analysing persistence in turnout
Author(s)
Date Issued
2006-05
Date Available
2009-03-11T14:34:20Z
Abstract
Individuals who vote in one election are also more likely to vote in the next. Modelling the causal relationship between past and current voting decisions however is intrinsically difficult, as this positive association can exist due to habit formation or unobserved heterogeneity. This paper overcomes this problem using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine voter turnout across three elections. It distinguishes between unobserved heterogeneity caused by fixed individual characteristics and the initial conditions problem, which occurs when voting behaviour in a previous, but unobserved, period influences current voting behaviour. It finds that controlling for fixed effects unobserved heterogeneity has little impact on the estimated degree of habit in voter turnout, however failing to control for initial conditions reduces the estimate by a half. The results imply that voting in one election increases the probability of voting in a subsequent election by 13%.
Type of Material
Working Paper
Publisher
University College Dublin. School of Economics
Series
UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series
WP06/07
Copyright (Published Version)
UCD School of Economics
Subject – LCSH
Voting research
Language
English
Status of Item
Not peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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