马歇尔讲座 2025：政治信息与网络效应

Journal of the European Economic Association · 2025 · [{"name": "Georgy Egorov", "affiliation": ["Kellogg's (Canada)"]}, {"name": "Sergei Guriev", "affiliation": ["London Business School"]}, {"name": "Maxim Mironov", "affiliation": ["IE University"]}, {"name": "Ekaterina Zhuravskaya", "affiliation": ["Paris School of Economics"]}]

中文摘要

摘要政治竞选为何常常产生出人意料的结果？我们通过分别估计竞选对目标选民的直接效应，以及对同一社会环境中其他人的间接效应，来回答这一问题。在阿根廷 2023 年总统选举期间，我们与一家当地非政府组织（NGO）合作，随机分发传单，传单中提供了针对局外人候选人哈维尔·米莱（Javier Milei）某些提案可能后果的专家评估。利用阿根廷独特的次级投票区（sub-precinct）选举报告系统，我们发现，该竞选如预期般降低了直接受处理选民对米莱的支持，却提高了受处理投票区中未受处理选民对他的支持，从而对米莱产生了适得其反的净正向效应。一项预注册的重复研究证实了这些符号相反的效应。借助理论分析和一项调查实验，我们表明，不相信该竞选信息的少数选民反而更有动力与同伴讨论此事，进而说服后者支持米莱。当竞选批评局外人候选人时，这种动员效应似乎尤其容易出现。我们的研究结果凸显出，针对反精英候选人的竞选活动可能会无意中动员起对他们的支持。

Abstract

Abstract Why do political campaigns so often yield unexpected results? We address this question by separately estimating the direct effect of a campaign on targeted voters and the indirect effect on others in the same social environment. Partnering with a local NGO during Argentina’s 2023 presidential election, we randomized the distribution of leaflets providing an expert assessment of the likely consequences of certain proposals by the outsider candidate Javier Milei. Exploiting Argentina’s unique sub-precinct election reporting system, we show that the campaign reduced Milei’s support among directly treated voters, as expected, but increased his support among untreated voters in treated precincts, producing a backfiring, net-positive effect for Milei. A pre-registered replication confirmed these opposite-signed effects. Using theory and a survey experiment, we show that the minority of voters who disbelieved the campaign were more motivated to discuss it with peers, convincing them to support Milei. This mobilization effect appears especially likely when campaigns criticize outsider candidates. Our results highlight how campaigns aimed at anti-elite candidates can unintentionally mobilize support for them.