Voter Turnout and City Performance: Evidence from Italian Municipalities

Abstract

Using data on mayoral elections in large Italian cities during the 2000s, we investigate whether and how voter turnout affects city performance across a number of dimensions. To address the issue of voter turnout endogeneity and identify the transmission mechanism, we exploit exogenous variation in participation rates in mayoral elections due to anticipated shocks (concurrence of local and national elections) and unanticipated shocks (bad weather on the day of the election) to the cost of voting. The results consistently point to a negative impact of voter turnout rates on indicators of urban environmental performance, life quality, and administrative efficiency. Interestingly, though, we find that only anticipated shocks to turnout affect the quality of elected mayors measured on a number of competence dimensions, compatibly with the hypothesis of a selection mechanism whereby parties choose candidates to maximize their chances of winning the elections based on their expectations on voter turnout rates (JEL D72, H72, C26).

Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy

“…For example, using a subset of the data we use in our city-level analysis, Bracco and Revelli (2018) find that concurrent municipal elections increase voter turnout in less-salient provincial elections, while Revelli (2017) shows that turnout in municipal elections is higher when these contests concur with higher-salience national elections. Similarly, in their study of the electoral determinants of city performance in 93 large Italian municipalities, 2001-2010, Lo Prete and Revelli (2020 find that concurrent national parliamentary elections increase turnout in municipal elections, while concurrent European, regional, and provincial elections do not. 3 In the U.S., Fowler (2015) observes that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate's vote share is, on average, 6.4 percentage points higher in states with on-cycle gubernatorial elections.…”

Financial education: From better personal finance to improved citizenship

“…Recent and ongoing research has explored whether different levels and kinds of education are related to people's participation in parliamentary elections across countries (Lo Prete, 2021). Figure 1 illustrates the simple relation between average levels of financial literacy and voter turnout at national elections.…”

Electoral Competition with Targeted Voting Costs

“…For a US example,Cascio and Washington (2014) shows that the Voting Rights Act increased distribution to majority black districts. In the European context, evidence suggests that turnout affects government size and performance(Godefroy and Henry 2016;Lo Prete and Revelli 2021;Aggeborn 2016). …”