Replication Data for: Information and Economic Voting

The connection between the economy and vote choice continues to garner interest both in the academic and popular press. To isolate the effects of economic considerations, we develop a laboratory experiment that allows us to vary these considerations at three levels: the individual, community and national economy. Choices by policymakers directly affect outcomes at each of these levels, allowing us to test for egotropic, `communotropic', and sociotropic voting, as well as examine information search. We observe significant demand for information and that demand decreases with the complexity of the environment. Moreover, information demand is positively associated with other-regarding behavior.

经济状况与选民投票选择之间的关联，始终在学术研究与大众媒体领域受到广泛关注。为剥离经济考量的影响效应，我们构建了一项实验室实验，可在个体、社区与国民经济三个层级上对这类经济考量进行变量操控。政策制定者的决策会直接作用于这三个层级的经济结果，借此我们得以检验自我中心型投票（egotropic voting）、社区中心型投票（communotropic voting）与社会中心型投票（sociotropic voting）行为，同时亦可考察信息搜索活动。我们观测到显著的信息需求，且该需求会随实验环境复杂度的提升而下降；此外，信息需求与他涉行为（other-regarding behavior）呈显著正相关关系。