Information and anti-American attitudes

Delavande, A; Zafar, B

Information and anti-American attitudes

Delavande, A

Zafar, B

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2018, 149 pp. 1 - 31
Issue Date:: 2018-05-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Delavande, A https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8691-6359	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Zafar, B	en_US
dc.date.issued	2018-05-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2018, 149 pp. 1 - 31	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0167-2681	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/135749
dc.description.abstract	© 2018 Elsevier B.V. This paper investigates how attitudes towards the United States are affected by provision of information. We generate a “panel” of attitudes in urban Pakistan, in which respondents are randomly exposed to fact-based statements describing the US in either a positive or negative light. Anti-American sentiment is high and heterogenous in our sample at the baseline, and systematically correlated with intended behavior (such as intended migration to the US). We find that revised attitudes are significantly different from baseline attitudes: attitudes are, on average, revised upward (downward) upon receipt of positive (negative) information, indicating that providing information had a meaningful effect on US favorability. The within-subject design and data on respondents’ priors allows us to investigate the underlying mechanisms. We find that revisions are largely a result of salience-based updating. We reject unbiased information-based updating as the only source of revisions. In addition, a substantial proportion of individuals do not respond to the information. This heterogeneity in revision processes means that there is no convergence in attitudes following the provision of information.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.jebo.2018.03.002	en_US
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.subject.classification	Economics	en_US
dc.title	Information and anti-American attitudes	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	149	en_US
utslib.for	1402 Applied Economics	en_US
utslib.for	1401 Economic Theory	en_US
utslib.for	1403 Econometrics	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Economics Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	149	en_US

Abstract:

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. This paper investigates how attitudes towards the United States are affected by provision of information. We generate a “panel” of attitudes in urban Pakistan, in which respondents are randomly exposed to fact-based statements describing the US in either a positive or negative light. Anti-American sentiment is high and heterogenous in our sample at the baseline, and systematically correlated with intended behavior (such as intended migration to the US). We find that revised attitudes are significantly different from baseline attitudes: attitudes are, on average, revised upward (downward) upon receipt of positive (negative) information, indicating that providing information had a meaningful effect on US favorability. The within-subject design and data on respondents’ priors allows us to investigate the underlying mechanisms. We find that revisions are largely a result of salience-based updating. We reject unbiased information-based updating as the only source of revisions. In addition, a substantial proportion of individuals do not respond to the information. This heterogeneity in revision processes means that there is no convergence in attitudes following the provision of information.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/135749