Voting as a rational choice
Subtitle: why and how people vote to improve the well-being of others
By: Aaron Edlin, Andrew Gelman , Noah Kaplan.
Contributors: Gelman, Andrew.; Kaplan, Noah, 1962-; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13562.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13562.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 21
Subjects: Voting -- Social aspects
Description: For voters with "social" preferences, the expected utility of voting is approximately independent of the size of the electorate, suggesting that rational voter turnouts can be substantial even in large elections. Less important elections are predicted to have lower turnout, but a feedback mechanism keeps turnout at a reasonable level under a wide range of conditions. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) to show how, for an individual with both selfish and social preferences, the social preferences will dominate and make it rational for a typical person to vote even in large elections;(2) to show that rational socially-motivated voting has a feedback mechanism that stabilizes turnout at reasonable levels (e.g., 50% of the electorate); (3) to link the rational social-utility model of voter turnout with survey findings on socially-motivated vote choice.
Notes: "October 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 17-20).

Also available in PDF from the NBER world wide web site (www.nber.org).