The habit for voting, “civic duty” and travel distance

There is a rich literature addressing the paradox of not voting and election turnout from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. By taking advantage of a unique dataset from an “experimental” setting, this paper is the first to estimate the utility that drives the “civic duty” or the habit for voting. Consistent with the general turnout literature, education level, marital status, household size, and distance all affect the persistence of voter participation.