Why don't we vote like we shop

source:: Why don't we vote like we shop? — Jayson Lusk

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214804318300508?via%3Dihub

Paul, A. S., Lusk, J. L., Norwood, F. B., & Tonsor, G. T. (2019). An experiment on the vote-buy gap with application to cage-free eggs. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 79, 102-109.

• Extract these: see here, here, or here).

People will vote to raise prices on themeslves?!

• The stark example provided by Proposition 2 in California back in 2008, when about 64% of Californian’s went to the polls and outlawed the production of a good they routinely bought (caged eggs) resulting in a so-called vote-buy gap.

Their study

• We recruited people to participate in a series of decision making exercise, where they first made a shopping choice. The shopping choice options were: A) a more expensive cookie made with cage free eggs, B) a less extensive cookie made with conventional eggs, C) a snack without animal products, or D) refrain from buying anything. Then, in a second step, people were placed into groups (of small or large size), where they voted on whether to ban option B (the cookie made from conventional eggs) for the people in their group. Finally, if the vote passed, people re-chose from the constrained set of options. This basic set-up was repeated in several conditions that varied information, group size, and more to test different reasons for vote-buy gap.
• The first result is that we can replicate the vote-buy gap in our experimental setting.
• We are immediately able to rule out one explanation for the vote-buy gap - something we call the non-buyer hypothesis. The non-buyer hypothesis suggests the vote-buy gap is something of an illusion because, proverbially speaking, apples (voters) are being compared to oranges (shoppers). In the “real world”, many consumers of eggs are voters; however, not all voters are egg consumers. But, in our study we can compare each individual’s shopping choice to their own vote. 80% of people switch.
• Even in the condition where clear-transparent information was given about the types of eggs used to make each cookie, the share of people who voted to ban cage eggs was 15 to 20 percentage points higher than was the market share of purchased snacks made with cage free eggs.
• Public Good Hypothesis: The vote-buy gap is caused by the fact that more animals and people are impacted by a ban than the impact of a single shopping choice for cage-free eggs; as the size of the group affected by a vote increases, individuals are more likely to vote in favor of the initiative if it has a desirable public good component, thereby increasing the vote-buy gap.
• Expressive Voter Hypothesis: The vote-buy gap is caused by the fact that in large groups, an individual’s vote is unlikely to be a deciding factor, privileging expressive preferences over instrumental preferences; as a group size increases, and the likelihood that an individual’s vote is consequential and decisive falls, individuals are more likely to vote in favor of the initiative, thereby increasing the vote-buy gap.”
• However, our data shows that when moving from small to large groups, the vote-buy gap is actually larger in the small groups than the large group, exactly the opposite of what is predicted.
• We can be fairly confident the vote-buy gap is real and replicatable, but alas we still don’t have a good answer as for why
• A residual hypothesis that remains if all others fail to explain the gap is inconsistent preferences. That is, people may have different preferences when shopping as compared to voting. This sort of preference inconsistency is at the heart of the so-called consumer vs. citizen phenomenon. The thought is that people adopt more public-minded preferences when in the voting booth but rely on more selfish motives when shopping privately