Published on The Plot blog on 18 July 2016
The outcome of the Brexit referendum has sparked a wave of comments to understand who the Leave voters are. The evidence so far indicates that those who decided to leave the EU tend to be older, less educated and poorer than those who decided to remain in the EU. However, there is another factor that seems to explain support for Brexit, i.e. voters’ inclination to take risks. Despite presenting two apparently equivalent options, referendums require voters to choose between the uncertainty of a change – such as a constitutional change or the introduction of a new policy – and the relative certainty of maintaining the status quo. In most cases, the ‘change option’ is intrinsically riskier than keeping the status quo, and the outcome of Britain’s EU referendum clearly shows that “Brexit is riskier than Bremain”, as Timothy Garton Ash wrote.
Given these differences between referendum options in terms of risks and uncertainties, we can expect risk preferences to influence not only voting decisions, but also how voters react to campaign arguments from both sides of the referendum campaign. Were risk takers more likely to vote Leave in the Brexit referendum, and how did information influence their voting decisions?
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