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...

This paper explores the ability of pivotal-voter models to explain voter behavior in small-scale elections using data from Texas liquor referenda. The findings provide little support for the view that pivotal-voter models are a reasonable theory for understanding small-scale elections....

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...

We use data from Texas liquor referenda to evaluate the performance of the pivotal-voter theory of voter turnout. We structurally estimate the parameters of a pivotal-voter model using the referendum data. We then use the estimates to evaluate the out of sample performance of the model. Finally,...

"This paper uses data from Texas liquor referenda to explore a new approach to understanding voter turnout, inspired by the theoretical work of Harsanyi (1980) and Feddersen and Sandroni (2001). It presents a model based on this approach and structurally estimates it using the referendum data....