Voting behavior and the terrestrial digital divide

In this paper, we explore the impact of the advent of the digital television on political selection and voting behavior in Italian municipal elections. To this aim, we exploit a unique quasi-experiment offered by the idiosyncratic deadlines to switch from analog to digital TV in Italian cities. We find that, when proper account is taken of possible omitted variables and local trends, the advent of the terrestrial digital television did not affect in a statistically significant way the quality of elected local politicians, but lowered voter turnout.