1. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Urban Politics
Peter John (University of Manchester)

2. Policy background
Choice a key objective of government policy - assumed to deliver benefits to the consumer
Choice and voice assumed to be complementary – see Social Market Foundation, Choice: The Evidence (2004)
No tests of this statement

3. Hirschmann Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970)
Studied nationalised industries in Africa – found that competition led to loss of efficiency – a puzzle
Argued that consumers who are locked in agitate to keep services efficient. No incentive to voice under competition when other opportunities available

4. Hirschmann (continued)
Posited a negative trade-off between exit and voice
Mediated by loyalty – a less clear part of the Hirschman model
Can apply to a variety of settings: schools, employment quits (unions), consumers (see Dowding et al review article: EJPR, 2000)

5. Modifications
Voice is too simple – there are different types of voice, collective (eg voting, group membership) and individual (e.g. complaining)
Collective voice is harder to organise because of CA (PD problems)
So hypothesis is that individual voice does not trade-off with exit, collective voice does – exit and two voice

6. Modifications continued
Exit takes different forms to:
Moving providers within jurisdiction
Moving jurisdiction
Exit to private services
So three exit, two voice model
Also voice can be divided into voting and more active categories, so three voice, three exit!

7. Thinking about loyalty
Loyalty not well defined in Hirchmann
Better to see it as social investment which increases voice and reduces exit
Can be conceptualised as social capital
Neighbourhood attachment
Trust
Group membership

8. Satisfaction Need to think about as a separate variable
Also can mediate exit-voice tradeoff
Something that providers can affect at the aggregate level

9. Hypotheses
H1: Intentions to exit will decrease collective voice activity.
H2: Intentions to exit will decrease individual voice, but less than collective voice
H3 – Social investment increases collective and individual voice
H4: Lack of exit availability will increase collective voice more than individual voice
H5: Dissatisfaction will increase voice first, then exit
H6: Satisfaction will increase after exit
H7: Satisfaction will increase after voice has been successfully responded to

10. The study Internet Survey – YouGov
Sampled which yielded 4067 responses, a response rate of 42.1 per cent.
In wave 2 we got a response of 2,619, 64.5 per cent of wave two.
In wave three we surveyed those who responded in wave two and supplemented the panel to yield 4952 responses which includes 1744 of those from wave 2.
In wave four we surveyed all the previous waves producing 3468 responses (1690 from waves 1; 1486 from wave 2; and 2941 from wave 3).
There were 1138 respondents who answered all waves.
On-line questionnaire

11. Dynamic aspects of the study
What does an event in one period do in the next period?
Key event is exit to the private sector - does exit increases satisfaction
First we look at change in satisfaction from wave 1 to 2, which is a difference in confidence that an injury will be treated
The see if there is correlation with exit in wave , which there is: -.05 (p=.08)

12. Impact of satisfaction on exit over four years of the panel
Time expecting treat ***(-0.022) Household income 3.34e-05*** -1.66E-06 Year *** Sex ** Constant *** Observations Number of id 5929

13. Conclusions
Many expected relationships between satisfaction and voice, and between satisfaction and exit
There is a link between lock in and voice
Trade-off between exit and voice for intentions to move, but less for other forms of exit
Policy implications – costs of exit needs to be factored in to policy choices