Economic theory suggests that high voter turnout is not necessarily welfare maximizing. Low turnout elections, however, might be captured by interest groups. Using data from German local governments in the period 1993–2015, I empirically study the link between turnout and policy outcomes. Local public sector employment policy responds to plausibly exogenous turnout shocks in elections for the head of the local public administration, in which public employees are arguably an important interest group. Specifically, using concurrent elections as an instrument for turnout, I find that low turnout significantly changes public employment policy in favor of the public employees.

中文翻译：

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选民投票率和公共部门就业政策

经济学理论认为，高投票率不一定使福利最大化。但是，利益团体可能会投票率偏低。我使用1993年至2015年德国地方政府的数据，以经验方法研究了投票率与政策结果之间的联系。地方公共部门的就业政策是对地方公共行政首长选举中貌似合理的外来投票冲击的回应，在公共选举中，公共雇员无疑是重要的利益集团。具体来说，我发现通过将同时举行的选举作为投票工具，我发现低投票率极大地改变了公共就业政策，有利于公共雇员。