Is mandatory voting better than voluntary voting?

B-Tier
Journal: Games and Economic Behavior
Year: 2009
Volume: 66
Issue: 1
Pages: 275-291

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We investigate the welfare effects of policies that increase voter turnout in costly voting models. In a generalized costly voting model, we show that if the electorate is sufficiently large, then increasing voter turnout is generically efficient. Increasing turnout in small elections is only inefficient if the electorate is evenly divided or if there is already almost complete voter participation. Finally, we argue that the effects underlying our results are robust in a large class of endogenous participation models.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:gamebe:v:66:y:2009:i:1:p:275-291
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25