Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/186074 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Citation: 
[Journal:] Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics [ISSN:] 2235-6282 [Volume:] 153 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2017 [Pages:] 261-291
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
This paper investigates whether popular initiatives signed by a larger share of the population have higher acceptance rates at the subsequent vote. The main analysis is based on all Swiss federal initiatives voted between 1978 and 2000 with a panel of aggregate voting data at cantonal level. The results suggest that petition signing is positively and significantly related to acceptance rates at ballot. I address potential omitted variable bias from underlying preferences which might be driving both signatures and acceptance rates in three ways. First, the panel structure of the data allows to control for time-constant preferences via fixed effects. Second, results are robust to various proxies for voter preferences. Third, using the doubling of the signature requirement in 1978 as an instrumental variable confirms the above result. The findings imply that petition signing can serve as an effective partisan campaigning tool.
Subjects: 
Initiatives
signatures
direct democracy
voting
campaigning
JEL: 
D72
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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