IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-03460274.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Advertising and Voting Intention: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Ads Viewership

Author

Listed:
  • Ruben Durante

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications - ECO ENS-PSL - Département d'économie de l'ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)

  • Emilio Gutierrez

    (ITAM - Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México)

Abstract

Mexico's campaign law assigns TV and radio ads to parties according to their vote share in the previous election, and mandates the time of the day at which ads are aired to be determined randomly. We exploit this arguably exogenous variation in viewers' exposure to political ads by different parties and longitudinal electoral survey data to estimate the effect of ads on voting intentions during Mexico's 2012 presidential campaign. We find that political ads on both radio and TV have a positive, significant and sizeable effect on voting intentions. This effect is short-lived (about two weeks), and is stronger in the early weeks of the campaign. Ads tend to have no significant impact on voters' knowledge of candidates' political message, and to be more effective at convincing individuals that are more educated, and those who voted for the party in the past. Taken together these findings suggests that ads do not influence voters by conveying new information but that other mechanisms of persuasion, cantered around ads' non-informative content, may be at work.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruben Durante & Emilio Gutierrez, 2014. "Political Advertising and Voting Intention: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Ads Viewership," Working Papers hal-03460274, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03460274
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03460274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03460274/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brusco, Sandro & Dziubiński, Marcin & Roy, Jaideep, 2012. "The Hotelling–Downs model with runoff voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 447-469.
    2. Andrea Prat, 2002. "Campaign Advertising and Voter Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 999-1017.
    3. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    4. Stefano DellaVigna & Matthew Gentzkow, 2010. "Persuasion: Empirical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 643-669, September.
    5. Bernardo S. Da Silveira & João M. P. De Mello, 2011. "Campaign Advertising and Election Outcomes: Quasi-natural Experiment Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections in Brazil," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 590-612.
    6. Thomas R. Palfrey, 1984. "Spatial Equilibrium with Entry," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(1), pages 139-156.
    7. Gerber, Alan, 1998. "Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(2), pages 401-411, June.
    8. Martin J. Osborne, 1995. "Spatial Models of Political Competition under Plurality Rule: A Survey of Some Explanations of the Number of Candidates and the Positions They Take," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 261-301, May.
    9. Yanna Krupnikov, 2011. "When Does Negativity Demobilize? Tracing the Conditional Effect of Negative Campaigning on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 797-813, October.
    10. Levitt, Steven D, 1994. "Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 777-798, August.
    11. Gregory A. Huber & Kevin Arceneaux, 2007. "Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 957-977, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anjali Morar & Tinashe Chuchu, 2015. "To Vote or Not To Vote: Marketing Factors Influencing the Voting Intention of University Students in Johannesburg," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 7(6), pages 81-93.
    2. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2022. "The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 29-57, July.
    3. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2016. "Using Political Financing Reforms to Measure Campaign Spending Effects on Electoral Outcomes," CESifo Working Paper Series 6232, CESifo.
    4. Seerat Sohal & Harsandaldeep Kaur, 2019. "Communicating with Voters on YouTube: Content Analysis of the Relationship Between Advertisement Message Characteristics and Viewers’ Responses," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 44(1), pages 17-35, February.
    5. Edeinmene Arede & Majority Oji, 2022. "Influence of Radio Broadcasting on Political Participation among People of South-South Nigeria," Studies in Media and Communication, Redfame publishing, vol. 10(2), pages 25-38, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ruben Durante & Emilio Gutierrez, 2014. "Political Advertising and Voting Intention: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Ads Viewership," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/26lctatf2u8, Sciences Po.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/26lctatf2u813of8nkn7j2230h is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Eric Avis & Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan & Carlos Varjão, "undated". "Money and Politics: The Effects of Campaign Spending Limits on Political Competition and Incumbency Advantage," Textos para discussão 656, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    4. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    5. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    6. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.
    7. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    8. David Ronayne, 2018. "Extreme idealism and equilibrium in the Hotelling–Downs model of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 389-403, September.
    9. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2022. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03389172, HAL.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Thomas Stratmann, 2003. "Tainted Money? Contribution Limits and the Effectiveness of Campaign Spending," CESifo Working Paper Series 1044, CESifo.
    13. Cagé, Julia & Bekkouche, Yasmine, 2018. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," CEPR Discussion Papers 12614, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    16. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Bruno Carvalho, 2021. "Campaign Spending in Local Elections: the Effects of Public Funding," Working Papers ECARES 2021-30, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    19. Arnaud Dellis, 2022. "Does Party Polarization Affect the Electoral Prospects of a New Centrist Candidate?," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, July.
    20. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers hal-03384143, HAL.
    21. Julia Cage & Yasmine Bekkouche, 2018. "The Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," Working Papers hal-03393149, HAL.
    22. Sophie Bade, 2016. "Divergent platforms," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 80(4), pages 561-580, April.
    23. Stefan Krasa & Mattias Polborn, 2007. "Majority-efficiency and Competition-efficiency in a Binary Policy Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 1958, CESifo.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2022. "The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 29-57, July.
    26. Sandro Brusco & Jaideep Roy, 2011. "Aggregate uncertainty in the citizen candidate model yields extremist parties," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(1), pages 83-104, January.
    27. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel WILNER, 2016. "Campaign spending and legislative election outcomes: Exploiting the French political financing reforms of the mid-1990s," Working Papers 2016-28, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    28. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias, 2010. "Competition between Specialized Candidates," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(4), pages 745-765, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03460274. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.