Risk and Attitude Towards Constitutional Change in Scotland

The notions of uncertainty and risk are naturally entangled with constitutional change referendums. This paper outlines the results of two large-scale online panel surveys (samples of n>2,100) of the Scottish population, examining the extent to which measured risk aversion predicts voting intentions in the Scottish Independence referendum of September 2014. Based on both observational and experimental evindence, we find that risk aversion is clearly a factor shaping voting intentions. A simple one-item risk measure is highly predictive of voting intention with respondents who display lower levels of risk aversion being more likely to state that they would vote Yes in the referendum.