TY  - JOUR
AU  - Coate,Stephen
AU  - Conlin,Michael
AU  - Moro,Andrea
TI  - The Performance of the Pivotal-Voter Model in Small-Scale Elections: Evidence from Texas Liquor Referenda
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10797
PY  - 2004
Y2  - September 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10797
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10797.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Stephen Coate
Department of Economics
Cornell University
Uris Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-7601
Tel: 607/255-1912
Fax: 215/573-2057
E-Mail: sc163@cornell.edu

Andrea Moro
Department of Economics
Vanderbilt University
VU Station B #351819
Nashville, TN 37235
E-Mail: andrea.moro@vanderbilt.edu
AB  - How well does the pivotal-voter model explain voter participation in small-scale elections? This paper explores this question using data from Texas liquor referenda. It first structurally estimates the parameters of a pivotal-voter model using the Texas data. It then uses the estimates to evaluate both the within and out-of-sample performance of the model. The analysis shows that the model is capable of predicting turnout in the data fairly well, but tends, on average, to predict closer electoral outcomes than are observed in the data. This difficulty allows the pivotal-voter model to be outperformed by a simple alternative model based on the idea of expressive voting.
ER  -