Do giving voice and social information help in revising a misconception about rent control?
Brandts, Jordi ((Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica)
Busom i Piquer, Isabel (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia Aplicada)
López-Mayán Navarrete, Cristina (Universitat de Barcelona)

Imprint:	Bellaterra : Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia Aplicada, 2024
Description:	65 pag.
Abstract:	Citizens' ability to make informed and thoughtful choices when voting for policy proposals rests on their exposure to accurate information about the costs and benefits that each proposal entails. We study whether certain social factors affect the disposition to drop a misconception, the belief that rent control increases the availability of affordable housing. We design an on-line experiment where all participants watch a video explaining the scientific evidence on the consequences of this policy. We test whether letting them give feedback (giving voice) and informing them about others' change of beliefs (social information) helps in reducing the misconception. Giving voice does not have an additional effect relative to a benchmark group that only watches the video. Social information further reduces the misconception when it specifies how different groups of people have responded to the video, but not when these distinctions are not made. Additionally, changes in beliefs translate into intended voting against the policy, and into recommending the video. Finally, ideological position and a zero-sum mentality are correlated with the initial misconception, but these two factors do not hinder the disposition to dropping it following the intervention.
Grants:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2023-147136NB-I00 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2023-149412NB-I00 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2021-124713OB-I00
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Series:	Document de treball (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia Aplicada) 04.24
Document:	Working paper
Subject:	Policy beliefs ; Ideology ; Zero-sum thinking ; Refutational communication ; Online experiments

Adreça alternativa: https://ideas.repec.org/p/uab/wprdea/wpdea2404.html

65 p, 2.9 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > Working papers > Department of Applied Economics. Working papers