Political economics in the laboratory

Voting is likely the tool most strongly associated with the idea of democratic decisions, be it at national or local elections, decisions within a parliament, committees, juries or even at company boards. In turn, the outcomes of voting processes potentially affect a large constituency. Therefore, understanding voter behavior is of major interest in a variety of fields. In this thesis I approach voter behavior from the perspective of Political Economics. More generally, I address various aspects of individual behavior in the common arena. Specifically, this thesis investigates the impact of information on the extent of strategic voting, explores the motives behind economic voting and applies a similar toolbox to understand contributions to the public good in a non-trivial scenario. This is done using a combination of theoretical (behavioral modeling) and experimental analysis.