The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics
The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics
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DOI：
10.1257/aer.101.7.2980
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发表时间：
2011-12-01
影响因子：
10.7
通讯作者：
Sinkinson, Michael
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gentzkow, Matthew;Shapiro, Jesse M.;Sinkinson, Michael
我们使用新的数据，从1869年到2004年，美国日报的进入和退出，估计对政治参与，政党投票份额和选举竞争力的影响。我们的识别策略利用这些事件的精确时间，并考虑到混淆趋势的可能性。我们的分析集中在1869 - 1928年，我们使用剩余年份的数据来查看随时间的变化。我们发现，报纸对政治参与有着强大的积极影响，一份额外的报纸使总统和国会的投票率增加了约0.3个百分点。报纸竞争并不是投票率的关键驱动因素：我们的影响主要是由市场上的第一份报纸驱动的，第二份或第三份报纸的影响要小得多。在引入广播和电视后，对总统投票率的影响减弱，而对国会投票率的估计影响直到最近几年仍然相似。我们没有发现任何证据表明党派报纸会影响政党的投票份额，即使是中等规模的影响，也会被排除在置信区间之外。我们没有发现明显的证据表明报纸系统地帮助或伤害现任者。
We use new data on entries and exits of US daily newspapers from 1869 to 2004 to estimate effects on political participation, party vote shares, and electoral competitiveness. Our identification strategy exploits the precise timing of these events and allows for the possibility of confounding trends. We focus our analysis on the years 18691928, and we use the remaining years of data to look at changes over time. We find that newspapers have a robust positive effect on political participation, with one additional newspaper increasing both presidential and congressional turnout by approximately 0.3 percentage points. Newspaper competition is not a key driver of turnout: our effect is driven mainly by the first newspaper in a market, and the effect of a second or third paper is significantly smaller. The effect on presidential turnout diminishes after the introduction of radio and television, while the estimated effect on congressional turnout remains similar up to recent years. We find no evidence that partisan newspapers affect party vote shares, with confidence intervals that rule out even moderate-sized effects. We find no clear evidence that newspapers systematically help or hurt incumbents.