Working Paper: NBER ID: w11794
Authors: Justine S. Hastings; Thomas J. Kane; Douglas O. Staiger; Jeffrey M. Weinstein
Abstract: There is little causal evidence on the effect of economic and policy outcomes on voting behavior. This paper uses randomized outcomes from a school choice lottery to examine if lottery outcomes affect voting behavior in a school board election. We show that losing the lottery has no significant impact on overall voting behavior; however, among white families, those with above median income and prior voting history, lottery losers were significantly more likely to vote than lottery winners. Using propensity score methods, we compare the voting of lottery participants to similar families who did not participate in the lottery. We find that losing the school choice lottery caused an increase in voter turnout among whites, while winning the lottery had no effect relative to non-participants. Overall, our empirical results lend support to models of expressive and retrospective voting, where likely voters are motivated to vote by past negative policy outcomes.
Keywords: voter participation; school choice; randomized outcomes; economic outcomes
JEL Codes: D72; I28
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| losing the school choice lottery (I28) | motivation to vote influenced by negative outcomes (D72) |
| losing the school choice lottery (I28) | increased voter participation (K16) |
| losing the school choice lottery (I28) | increases voter turnout among white families (K16) |
| winning the school choice lottery (I28) | no significant effect on voting behavior relative to nonparticipants (D72) |