Taxes and Turnout: When the decisive voter stays at home

Abstract

We develop a model of political competition with endogenous turnout andendogenous platforms. Parties trade o incentivizing their supporters to voteand discouraging the supporters of the competing party from voting. We showthat the latter objective is particularly pronounced for a party with an edge inthe political race. Thus, an increase in political support for a party may lead tothe adoption of policies favoring its opponents so as to asymmetrically demobi-lize them. We study the implications for the political economy of redistributivetaxation. Equilibrium tax policy is typically aligned with the interest of voterswho are demobilized.

Reference

Felix Bierbrauer, Aleh Tsyvinski, and Nicolas Werquin, “Taxes and Turnout: When the decisive voter stays at home”, American Economic Review, vol. 112, n. 2, February 2022, pp. 689–719.