Replication Data for: First-Time Voter Boost of Turnout: New Identification Strategy

In general, older individuals have higher voter turnout. In many countries, however, the youngest citizens are not the least likely to vote. Nonetheless, it is difficult to estimate the causal effect of first-time voting on turnout because many factors change with age. This study exploits a natural experiment in Japan. The proportion of first-time voters in a municipality can be estimated by the time from the latest local election to the current national election. In Japan, the timing of the latest local election can be regarded as randomly decided. Thus, scholars only have to regress the turnout of the youngest generation on the estimated share of the first-time voters to estimate the first-time voter boost. The results show that the first-time voter boost is 10.9 percentage points.