We analyze a model of participation in elections in which voting is costly and no vote is
pivotal. Ethical agents are motivated to participate when they determine that agents of their …

A sender seeks to persuade a group of heterogeneous voters to adopt an action. We
analyze the sender's information-design problem when the collective decision is made …

It is a truism to speak of the key normative role that public opinion polls play in contemporary
democratic societies. Theorists and practitioners have long extolled how polls inextricably …

We compare turnout under proportional power‐sharing electoral systems and winner‐take‐
all elections. The effect of such institutional differences on turnout depends on the …

We use laboratory experiments to test for one of the foundations of the rational voter
paradigm—that voters respond to probabilities of being pivotal. We exploit a setup that …

We experimentally study the impact of public opinion poll releases on voter turnout and
welfare in a participation game. We find higher overall turnout rates when polls inform the …

We study costly majority voting when voters rationally anticipate others have similar
preferences. The correlation in preferences lowers expected turnout because votes have a …

I consider a two-candidate election in which there is aggregate uncertainty over the
popularities of the candidates, where voting is costly, and where voters are instrumentally …

Undergraduate students are often interested in applications of economic principles.
Although popular television shows and movies are not real-world examples, drawing from …

World democracies widely differ in legislative, executive, and legal institutions. Different
institutional environments induce different mappings from electoral outcomes to the …