When are politicians incentivized to vote? Evidence from individual-level panel data (2015–2023)
利用挪威2015、2019和2023年地方选举的候选人登记数据和全体选民投票数据，研究发现政治家在竞选期间投票率显著高于任期前后，且名单排名靠前、所属政党有议会席位的候选人投票率更高。
When are politicians incentivized to vote? To answer this question, we examine politicians’ electoral participation before, during and after their political career. Our dataset combines individual-level register data for all candidates in the 2015, 2019, and 2023 Norwegian local elections with population-wide turnout data. We show that politicians are significantly more likely to vote when they are running for office (relative to pre- and post-office electoral participation), particularly if placed in top-ranked list positions and running for parties with council representation. Candidates in ‘contested’ list positions appear to exhibit higher turnout than those in ‘hopeless’ positions, but this gap disappears when controlling for individual fixed effects. Finally, post-office electoral participation exceeds pre-office participation after accounting for individual fixed effects, suggesting some degree of persistence and habit-formation. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of how candidates’ personal ambitions and electoral incentives interact with institutional features to influence electoral behavior.