Anyone for Higher Speed Limits? - Self-Interested and Adaptive Political Preferences

Abstract

Swedish survey-evidence indicates that variables reflecting self-interest are important in explaining people’s preferred speed limits, and that political preferences adapt to technological development. Drivers of cars that are newer (and hence safer), bigger, and with better high-speed characteristics, prefer higher speed limits, as do those who believe they drive better than average, whereas elderly people prefer lower limits. Furthermore, people report that they themselves vote more sociotropically than they believe others to vote, on average. Self-serving biases are proposed as a bridge between subjectively perceived expressive and sociotropic voting behavior, versus objectively self-interested voting behavior.