COMPULSORY VOTING AND GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Crain and Leonard (1993) examine the effects of compulsory voting on the scale of government spending. The purpose of this comment is twofold. First, problems in the Grain and Leonard's approach are identified. The choice of government consumption, rather than expenditure, as representative of government spending is inappropriate and the classification of non-voters as net beneficiaries of government spending is questionable. Second, the composition of government expenditure is examined. Cross-country data tentatively suggests that voters benefit, relative to non-voters, from government expenditures on defence and economic services while non-voters benefit from government expenditure on health.