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The Dracula effect: voter information and trade policy

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Abstract

Trade barriers cause substantial deadweight losses, yet they enjoy surprising voter support. We develop an electoral model that accounts for this puzzling popularity of protectionism. Producers have incentives to acquire information about their own sector, while consumers do not. As a result, trade barriers are popular because they are disproportionately noticed by their beneficiaries. In equilibrium, politicians give every sector positive protection. This protectionist bias induces Pareto inefficiency if public information is too limited. Our model predicts a Dracula Effect: trade policy for an industry is less protectionist when public awareness of it is greater. We test this prediction empirically across U.S. manufacturing industries, exploiting the timing of industrial accidents relative to other newsworthy events as a source of exogenous variation in media coverage of each sector. As predicted by our theory, industries whose accidents occur on slow news days subsequently enjoy lower non-tariff barriers.

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  • Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Maria Petrova & Ruben Enikolopov, 2008. "The Dracula effect: voter information and trade policy," Economics Working Papers 1296, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1296
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    Cited by:

    1. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2011. "Political centralization and government accountability," Economics Working Papers 1335, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2015.
    2. Graziano Abrate & Federico Boffa & Fabrizio Erbetta & Davide Vannoni, 2013. "Corruption, Accountability and Efficiency. An Application to Municipal Solid Waste Services," Working papers 022, Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    3. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Gino Gancia, 2015. "Economic Uncertainty and Structural Reforms," Working Papers 847, Barcelona School of Economics.
    4. repec:dgr:kubcen:2012033 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Ugo Troiano, 2012. "Social capital, government expenditures, and growth," Economics Working Papers 1307, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2024.
    6. Glaeser, Edward L. & Ponzetto, Giacomo A.M., 2018. "The political economy of transportation investment," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 4-26.
    7. Conconi, Paola & Facchini, Giovanni & Zanardi, Maurizio, 2014. "Policymakers' horizon and trade reforms: The protectionist effect of elections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 102-118.
    8. Guarini, Giulio & Laureti, Tiziana & Garofalo, Giuseppe, 2020. "Socio-institutional determinants of educational resource efficiency according to the capability approach: An endogenous stochastic frontier analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Gino Gancia, 2013. "Uncertainty, Electoral Incentives and Political Myopia," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 373-400, May.
    10. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Political Centralization and Government Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 381-422.
    11. Brito, Duarte & Elhauge, Einer & Ribeiro, Ricardo & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2023. "Modelling the objective function of managers in the presence of overlapping shareholding," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    12. Nunnari, Salvatore & Zapal, Jan, 2017. "A Model of Focusing in Political Choice," CEPR Discussion Papers 12407, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Belloc, Marianna, 2015. "Information for sale in the European Union," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 130-144.
    14. Graziano Abrate & Federico Boffa & Fabrizio Erbetta & Davide Vannoni, 2018. "Voters’ Information, Corruption, and the Efficiency of Local Public Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-22, December.
    15. Filip Matějka & Guido Tabellini, 2021. "Electoral Competition with Rationally Inattentive Voters," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1899-1935.
    16. repec:tiu:tiucen:2012033 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Glaeser, Edward L. & Ponzetto, Giacomo A.M., 2014. "Shrouded costs of government: The political economy of state and local public pensions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 89-105.
    18. Marianna Belloc, 2014. "Neo-Protectionism and the European Lobbies," CESifo Working Paper Series 4832, CESifo.
    19. Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto, 2013. "Shrouded Costs of Government: Political Economy of State and Local Public Pensions Data," Working Papers 660, Barcelona School of Economics.
    20. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Political Centralization and Government Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(1), pages 381-422.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Protectionism; Voters; Imperfect information; Media coverage; Dracula effect; Pareto inefficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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