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Costly voting: a large-scale real effort experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Marco FaravelliOpen the ORCID record for Marco Faravelli[Opens in a new window],
Kenan Kalayci and
Carlos Pimienta
Marco Faravelli*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Kenan Kalayci*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Carlos Pimienta*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, UNSW Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
*
m.faravelli@uq.edu.au
k.kalayci@uq.edu.au
c.pimienta@unsw.edu.au
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Abstract

We test the turnout predictions of the canonical costly voting model through a large-scale, real effort experiment. We recruit 1200 participants through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and employ a 2×2 between subjects design encompassing small (N=30) and large (N=300) elections, as well as close and lopsided. As predicted, participants with a higher opportunity cost are less likely to vote; turnout rate decreases as the electorate size increases in lopsided elections and increases the closer the election is in large elections. However, in the large lopsided election the majority turns out to vote at a higher rate than the minority. We rationalize these results as the equilibrium outcome of a model in which voters obtain a small non-monetary utility if they vote and their party wins.

Keywords

Costly votingTurnoutReal effort experimentAmazon’s Mechanical Turk

JEL classification

C93: Field ExperimentsD72: Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting BehaviorC72: Noncooperative Games

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 2020, pp. 468 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-019-09620-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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