Ortoleva, Pietro. <br/><br/>
Overconfidence in Political Behavior / 
Pietro Ortoleva, Erik Snowberg. 
 - Cambridge, Mass.  National Bureau of Economic Research  2013. 
 - 1 online resource:  illustrations (black and white); 
 - NBER working paper series  no. w19250 .
 - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)  no. w19250. .
<br/><br/> July 2013. 
<br/><br/> This paper studies, theoretically and empirically, the role of overconfidence in political behavior. Our model of overconfidence in beliefs predicts that overconfidence leads to ideological extremeness, increased voter turnout, and increased strength of partisan identification. Moreover, the model makes many nuanced predictions about the patterns of ideology in society, and over a person's lifetime. These predictions are tested using unique data that measure the overconfidence, and standard political characteristics, of a nationwide sample of over 3,000 adults. Our predictions, eight in total, find strong support in this data. In particular, we document that overconfidence is a substantively and statistically important predictor of ideological extremeness and voter turnout. 
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