Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/225558 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CREMA Working Paper No. 2020-16
Publisher: 
Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA), Zürich
Abstract: 
Broadening democracy by lowering the voting age is on the political agenda in many democratic societies. Previous suffrage extensions suggest that there are systematic differences between what parliaments decide and what voters want with respect to enfranchisement of new groups. This paper analyzes a new municipality level dataset of two Swiss federal referendums on lowering the voting age from 20 to 18. We focus on the role of institutional price variations by (i) the depth of democracy proxied by the strength of direct democratic institutions and (ii) the size of the new electorate. Our results provide evidence that the price the current electorate faces - thus their potential influence loss - varies with the strength of direct democracy and affects citizens' willingness to lower the voting age. Moreover, we find systematic price reactions of present voters to the number of new voters.
Subjects: 
voting age
youth enfranchisement
direct democracy
power loss
JEL: 
D72
D02
J15
P16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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