Some individuals vote because they are motivated by a civic duty to do so, whereas others may vote because they wish to appear prosocial to others. This paper proposes a simple framework that captures these motivations, and provides results consistent with findings on turnout, e.g., that turnout is responsive to the expected closeness and importance of an election, to the observability of one's choice to vote, and to social rewards and punishments associated with voting. We study various extensions of this framework in which community monitoring plays a role, and explore the implications that voter mobilization has for electoral competition. (JEL D03, D72)

This paper examines how a decisionmaker who is only partially aware of his temptations learns about them over time. In facing temptations over time, individuals use their experiences to forecast future self-control problems and choose the appropriate level of commitment. I demonstrate that rational learning can be perpetually partial and need not result in full sophistication. The main result of this paper characterizes necessary and sufficient conditions for learning to converge to full sophistication. This result has implications for commonly studied self-control environments such as savings and addiction.

This paper studies a simple model of observational learning where agents care not only about the information of others but also about their actions. We show that despite complex strategic considerations that arise from forward-looking incentives, herd behavior can arise in equilibrium. The model encompasses applications such as sequential elections, public good contributions, and leadership charitable giving.

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