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Job Market Paper: "The Effect
of Choice Context on Decision-Making: An Application to Voter
Fatigue"
Abstract: This paper
exploits a natural experiment in which
choice fatigue is isolated as an explanation for the
usage of heuristics in decision-making. The empirical application provides evidence
that voters who see a given
contest relatively further down the ballot are more likely to
vote "no" and to abstain. Within-election exogenous variation in ballot position
is primarily due to differences in the
set of overlaying local political jurisdictions. My central finding is
that lowering a proposition 10 positions on the ballot
increases precinct-level "no" votes and undervotes by
1.3 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively. Interestingly, 8 of
124 statewide propositions in the dataset have
winning margins within the range of the "no"
estimate. The empirical analysis employs a unique precinct-level panel dataset
of votes cast for the entire menu of federal,
state & local ballot choices in primary and general elections
between 1992 and 2006 in San Diego County, California. Implications
of the results range from potential limits on the
amount of information disseminated by firms and policy
makers to the design of electoral institutions and the
strategic use of ballot propositions. |
