Policy implementation has important electoral effects, but there is often a problem in determining if policy changes drive electoral behaviour or if the process works in reverse. To address this issue we exploit a unique natural experiment in Britain: the closure of thousands of train stations, known as the Beeching Cuts, on the eve of General Election of 1964. We use several statistical methods to show that policy implementation was unaffected by partisan considerations and therefore it can be regarded as an exogenous intervention. An individual level model of voting intentions from the first British Election Study conducted in 1963, and an aggregate model of party vote shares in the General Election of 1964 show that the closures significantly changed voting support for the Conservative party. The 1964 election was very competitive and the closures clearly contributed to the defeat of the incumbent government after 13 years of uninterrupted rule.

中文翻译：

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英国的“乞ee之斧”和选举支持

政策的实施对选举产生重要影响，但在确定政策变化是否会驱动选举行为或流程是否相反方面常常存在问题。为了解决这个问题，我们在英国进行了一项独特的自然实验：在1964年大选前夕，关闭了数千个火车站，称为“比奇切斯特”。我们使用几种统计方法来证明政策实施不受党派的影响考虑因素，因此可以将其视为外来干预。1963年进行的首次英国大选研究的个人投票意图模型，以及1964年大选的政党投票份额的综合模型表明，关闭选举极大地改变了对保守党的投票支持。