This paper studies the effect of preregistration laws on government spending in the U.S. Preregistration allows young citizens to register before being eligible to vote and has been introduced in different states in different years. Employing a difference-in-differences regression design, we first establish that preregistration shifts state-level government spending toward expenditure on higher education. The magnitude of the increase is larger when political competition is weaker and inequality is higher. Second, we document a positive effect of preregistration on state-provided student aid and its number of recipients by comparing higher education institutions within border-county pairs. Lastly, using individual-level data on voting records, we show that preregistration promotes a de facto youth enfranchisement episode. Consistent with a political economy model of distributive politics, the results collectively suggest strong political responsiveness to the needs of the newly-enfranchised constituent group.

中文翻译：

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青年权利、政治反应和教育支出：来自美国的证据

本文研究了预登记法对美国政府支出的影响 预登记法允许年轻公民在获得投票资格之前进行登记，并已于不同年份在不同州推出。采用差异中差异回归设计，我们首先确定预注册将州级政府支出转移到高等教育支出上。当政治竞争较弱且不平等程度较高时，增长幅度更大。其次，我们通过比较边境-县对中的高等教育机构，记录了预先注册对国家提供的学生援助及其接受者数量的积极影响。最后，使用投票记录的个人层面数据，我们表明预注册促进了事实上的青年选举权插曲。