The Effect of Referendums on Social Policy in Switzerland1
Ladina Caluori, Ursula Häfliger, Simon Hug, and Tobias
Schulz2
Prepared for delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Swiss
Political Science Association, November 18-19, 2004, Balstahl
First version: January 2003, this version: Jul 24, 2005
Abstract
Recent studies have assessed the effect of referendums on various policy
outcomes, though most often these effects have been measured in terms of
expenditures alone. Similarly, in many studies the preferences of the
voting population are not explicitly included in the empirical models.
In the present paper we wish to overcome these two limitations when
studying social policies at the cantonal level in Switzerland. On the
one hand we employ comprehensive indicators on social policy legislation
derived from content analyses of the cantonal laws to get better
indications on the differences among cantons in the social policies. On
the other hand we employ aggregated survey data stemming from the Swiss
Household Panel to glean information on the preferences of the voters in
each canton.
Combining this data allows us to test for the hypothesis whether
well-developed institutions allowing for referendums lead to a closer
match between the voter preferences and policy outcomes in the area of
social policy. Such a closer link between preferences and outcomes is
suggested by several game-theoretic models dealing with the policy
effects of referendums.
The empirical tests
rely on a novel empirical model which allows for accurate tests of the
implied hypotheses.
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