During the EU referendum debate it has often been asserted that people tend to be risk averse and so vote against change in referendums. But does the evidence justify this claim? Stephen Fisher and Alan Renwick have collected data on over 250 national referendums held since 1990 and found that the change option has won a majority of the votes case in 69 per cent of them – though only 40 per cent actually passed due to the presence of additional requirements for a result to be counted as valid. The authors have also looked at the relationship between final polls and the eventual result and found that, though there is on average a small swing to the status quo, there is no reason to believe that a late swing will necessarily ensure a Remain win tomorrow if Leave are ahead in the final polls.

It is commonly asserted by people commenting on the EU…