Resumen de Are Voters More Likely to Contribute to Other Public Goods? Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Policy Experiment
Toby Bolsen, Paul J. Ferraro, Juan Jose Miranda
Voting has been described as a contribution to a public good. Are people who vote frequently therefore more likely to contribute to other public goods? Does partisanship affect how likely a person is to engage in these cooperative behaviors? Although surveys suggest that the answer to these questions is �Yes,� few empirical studies examine these questions using observed behaviors. We examine them in the context of a large-scale, randomized controlled trial to induce voluntary action in a common-pool resource dilemma. During a drought in the southeastern United States, pro-social messages that encouraged water conservation were randomly assigned to 35,000 out of 106,000 households. Frequent voters in primary and general elections (1990�2008) were substantially more responsive to the messages, but there was no detectable difference in the responses of Republican and Democrat households. Our results suggest that internalized pro-social preferences promote action for the public good across behavioral contexts.
