Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion.

Placebo

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26946/w26946.pdf

Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

An Analysis of Robert E. Lucas Jr.'s Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?

The Economic Effects of Constitutions. By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. 320p. $35.00.Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini have produced the most ambitious study yet that attempts to identify and estimate the effects of constitutional design on economic outcomes. They draw on data from more than 80 countries and control for demographic, historical, regional, and economic characteristics. The purpose is to determine whether the shape of political institutions has measurable impact on economic policies (e.g., fiscal balance, social welfare spending), on government performance (e.g., corruption indices, protection of property rights), and on direct measures of economic performance (e.g., productivity of capital and labor). The political institutions that draw the most attention are constitutional regime type and the method of electing legislators.

The Economic Effects of Constitutions

This article investigates the role of mass media in times of conflict and state-sponsored mass violence against civilians. We use a unique village-level data set from the Rwandan genocide to estimate the impact of a popular radio station that encouraged violence against the Tutsi minority population. The results show that the broadcasts had a significant effect on participation in killings by both militia groups and ordinary civilians. An estimated 51,000 perpetrators, or approximately 10% of the overall violence, can be attributed to the station. The broadcasts increased militia violence not only directly by influencing behavior in villages with radio reception but also indirectly by increasing participation in neighboring villages. In fact, spillovers are estimated to have caused more militia violence than the direct effects. Thus, the article provides evidence that mass media can affect participation in violence directly due to exposure and indirectly due to social interactions. JEL Codes: D7, N4.

/pdf/propaganda-and-conflict-evidence-from-the-rwandan-genocide-476kub5lbj.pdf

Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide

Can protests cause political change, or are they merely symptoms of underlying shifts in policy preferences? This paper studies the effect of the Tea Party movement in the United States, which rose to prominence through a series of rallies across the country on April 15, Tax Day, 2009. To identify the causal effect of protests, we use an instrumental variables approach that exploits variation in rainfall on the day of the coordinated rallies. Weather on Tax Day robustly predicts rally attendance and the subsequent local strength of the movement as measured by donations, media coverage, social networking activity, and later events. We show that larger rallies cause an increase in turnout in favor of the Republicans in the 2010 Congressional elections, and increase the likelihood that incumbent Democratic representatives retire. Incumbent policymaking is affected as well: representatives respond to large protests in their district by voting more conservatively in Congress. Finally, the estimates imply significant multiplier effects: for every protester, Republican votes increase by seven to fourteen votes. Together our results show that protests can build political movements that ultimately affect policy, and they suggest that it is unlikely that these effects arise solely through the standard channel of private-information revelation.

/pdf/do-political-protests-matter-evidence-from-the-tea-party-3qwco1vckd.pdf

Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement*

Media outlets often present diverging, even con?icting, perspectives on reality — not only informing, but potentially misinforming audiences We study the extent to which misinformation broadcast on mass media at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in?uenced health outcomes We ?rst document large di?erences in content between the two most popular cable news shows in the US, both on the same network, and in the adoption of preventative behaviors among viewers of these shows Through both a selection-on-observables strategy and an instrumental variable approach, we ?nd that areas with greater exposure to the show downplaying the threat of COVID-19 experienced a greater number of cases and deaths We assess magnitudes through an epidemiological model highlighting the role of externalities and provide evidence that contemporaneous information exposure is a key underlying mechanism

/pdf/misinformation-during-a-pandemic-3p59njrlqq.pdf

Misinformation During a Pandemic

We study the economic effects of religious practices in the context of the observance of Ramadan fasting, one of the central tenets of Islam. To establish causality, we exploit variation in the length of the fasting period due to the rotating Islamic calendar. We report two key, quantitatively meaningful results: 1) longer Ramadan fasting has a negative effect on output growth in Muslim countries, and 2) it increases subjective well-being among Muslims. We then examine labor market outcomes, and find that these results cannot be primarily explained by a direct reduction in labor productivity due to fasting. Instead, the evidence indicates that Ramadan affects Muslims’ relative preferences regarding work and religiosity, suggesting that the mechanism operates at least partly by changing beliefs and values that influence labor supply and occupational choices beyond the month of Ramadan itself. Together, our results indicate that religious practices can affect labor supply choices in ways that have negative implications for economic performance, but that nevertheless increase subjective well-being among followers.

/pdf/does-religion-affect-economic-growth-and-happiness-evidence-3uhrx3zqgt.pdf

Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan*

We show that the vast majority of young married men in Saudi Arabia privately support women working outside the home (WWOH) and substantially underestimate support by other similar men. Correcting these beliefs increases men’s (costly) willingness to help their wives search for jobs. Months later, wives of men whose beliefs were corrected are more likely to have applied and interviewed for a job outside the home. In a recruitment experiment with a local company, randomly informing women about actual support for WWOH leads them to switch from an at-home temporary enumerator job to a higher-paying, outside-the-home version of the job.

/pdf/misperceived-social-norms-women-working-outside-the-home-in-2cgh02ecit.pdf

David Yanagizawa-Drott

Papers

Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide

Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement*

Misinformation During a Pandemic

Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan*

Misperceived Social Norms: Women Working Outside the Home in Saudi Arabia