Compulsory Voting and Voter Knowledge

My little paper on compulsory voting and knowledge (co-authored with Milner and Hicks) is here. We conducted the experiment in the winter of 2007. That it's in press a year later says a lot about how efficient is the editorial team at the CJPS. It also says something, I should like to think, about the clarity and simplicity of experimental work.

Note: I think the article is gated. Send me an email if you'd like to read it. Here is the abstract:

Does compulsory voting lead to more knowledgeable and engaged citizens? We report the results from a recent experiment measuring such “second-order effects” in a compulsory voting environment. We conducted the experiment during the 2007 Quebec provincial election among 121 students at a Montreal CEGEP. To receive payment, all the students were required to complete two surveys; half were also required to vote. By comparing knowledge and engagement measures between the two groups, we can measure the second-order effects of compulsory voting. We find little or no such effects.