SOCIAL INCENTIVES AND VOTER TURNOUT: EVIDENCE FROM THE SWISS MAIL BALLOT SYSTEM
利用瑞士邮寄投票的自然实验，发现社会压力对投票行为有激励作用，尤其在小型社区中更显著；尽管邮寄投票降低了成本，但对总体投票率影响不大。
This paper uses a natural experiment to document the impact of social pressure on voting behavior. The main hypothesis is that social pressure creates incentives to vote for the purpose of being seen at the voting act. This incentive is particularly high in small and close-knit communities. Empirically, I analyze the effect of postal voting on voter participation in Switzerland. Optional postal voting decreased the voting costs, but simultaneously removed the social pressure to vote. In spite of the large reduction in voting costs, the effect on aggregate turnout was small. However, voter participation was more negatively affected in the smaller communities. This lends support to the view that social incentives played a role for certain people's voting decisions.