VOTING AS INVESTMENT VS VOTING AS CONSUMPTION - NEW EVIDENCE

This paper develops a test of the hypothesis that voting is an investment by voters in desired electoral outcomes (the 'investment theory'), ag opposed to the alternative hypothesis that voting is a consumption good (i.e., the act of voting itself gives utility to the voter, akin to the 'warm glow' theory of provision of public goods). It is shown that the investment theory implies that voter abstention should be a function of indifference between the opposing candidates, but not of 'alienation' from all candidates. In other words, the difference in utility the voter expects to receive from the two candidates, and not the absolute level of utility from his favored candidate, matters in the investment theory. Micro survey data from the 1976 U.S. Presidential election support the hypothesis that, on the contrary, the absolute level of utility had a significant effect on abstention, while the difference in utilities had no effect. Thus the evidence supports the 'consumption' theory and tends to reject the investment theory. An implication of this result is that the act of voting may not be as paradoxical as is commonly believed, because the free-rider problem is irrelevant if voting is a private, consumption good.