THE STRUCTURE OF VOTER PREFERENCES

Economic models of voting typically assume the transitivity of individ ual-level preferences. Other conditions, such as single-peakedness or dichotomization, are also sometimes postulated. Despite the ubiquity o f these assumptions, there is a paucity of empirical tests using real- world elections with mass electorates. Using CPS data, I address these issues in the context of U.S. presidential elections from 1972 to 198 4. It is maintained that (a) the traditional assumption of transitivit y is empirically plausible, even with a large number of alternatives, and while preferences are (b) predominantly not dichotomous, they do ( c) tend to be single-peaked along a traditional ideological dimension.