IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ces/epofor/v26y2025i04p17-20.html

Combating Misinformation: What Works and What We Should Do

Author

Listed:
  • Horacio Larreguy

Abstract

Key Messages:Debunking corrects false claims but is limited in scale without systemic supportPrebunking builds resilience by exposing manipulative tactics before misinformation spreadsAccuracy nudges help at scale but offer short-lived effectsClassroom literacy programs are the most durable and generalizable defense

Suggested Citation

  • Horacio Larreguy, 2025. "Combating Misinformation: What Works and What We Should Do," EconPol Forum, CESifo, vol. 26(04), pages 17-20, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:epofor:v:26:y:2025:i:04:p:17-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/econpol-forum-4-2025-larreguy-misinformation.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Badrinathan, Sumitra, 2021. "Educative Interventions to Combat Misinformation: Evidence from a Field Experiment in India," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 115(4), pages 1325-1341, November.
    2. Gordon Pennycook & Ziv Epstein & Mohsen Mosleh & Antonio A. Arechar & Dean Eckles & David G. Rand, 2021. "Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online," Nature, Nature, vol. 592(7855), pages 590-595, April.
    3. Bowles, Jeremy & Croke, Kevin & Larreguy, Horacio & Liu, Shelley & Marshall, John, 2025. "Sustaining Exposure to Fact-Checks: Misinformation Discernment, Media Consumption, and Its Political Implications," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 119(4), pages 1864-1887, November.
    4. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:04:p:902-916_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Balbuzanov, Ivan & Gars, Jared & Stalinski, Mateusz & Tjernström, Emilia, 2025. "Incentivizing Engagement: Experimental Evidence on Journalist Performance Pay," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 763, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    6. De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin & Baum, Matthew A. & Berinsky, Adam J. & Yamamoto, Teppei, 2019. "Persuading the Enemy: Estimating the Persuasive Effects of Partisan Media with the Preference-Incorporating Choice and Assignment Design," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 902-916, November.
    7. repec:plo:pone00:0240005 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Nyhan, Brendan & Reifler, Jason, 2015. "Displacing Misinformation about Events: An Experimental Test of Causal Corrections," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 81-93, April.
    9. Balbuzanov, Ivan & Gars, Jared & Stalinski, Mateusz & Tjernstrom, Emilia, 2025. "Incentivizing Engagement : Experimental Evidence on Journalist Performance Pay," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1570, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. John M. Carey & Andrew M. Guess & Peter J. Loewen & Eric Merkley & Brendan Nyhan & Joseph B. Phillips & Jason Reifler, 2022. "The ephemeral effects of fact-checks on COVID-19 misperceptions in the United States, Great Britain and Canada," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(2), pages 236-243, February.
    2. Mattingly, Daniel & Incerti, Trevor & Ju, Changwook & Moreshead, Colin & Tanaka, Seiki & Yamagishi, Hikaru, 2022. "Chinese State Media Persuades a Global Audience That the “China Model” is Superior: Evidence From A 19-Country Experiment," OSF Preprints 5cafd_v1, Center for Open Science.
    3. Jan Pfänder & Sacha Altay, 2025. "Spotting false news and doubting true news: a systematic review and meta-analysis of news judgements," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(4), pages 688-699, April.
    4. Myunghoon Kang & Chunho Park & Jisung Yoon & Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, 2025. "Partisan attitudes and the motivation behind the spread of misleading information," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    6. Chenlong Wang & Pablo Lucas, 2024. "Efficiency of Community-Based Content Moderation Mechanisms: A Discussion Focused on Birdwatch," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 673-709, June.
    7. Nicolás Ajzenman & Bruno Ferman & Pedro C. Sant'Anna, 2025. "Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks: A Field Experiment on #EconTwitter," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 357-375, September.
    8. Buechel, Berno & Klößner, Stefan & Meng, Fanyuan & Nassar, Anis, 2023. "Misinformation due to asymmetric information sharing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    9. Krzysztof Krakowski & Juan S. Morales & Dani Sandu, 2020. "Violence Against Politicians, Negative Campaigning, and Public Opinion: Evidence from Poland," CHILD Working Papers Series 624 JEL Classification: D, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    10. Joseph B. Bak-Coleman & Ian Kennedy & Morgan Wack & Andrew Beers & Joseph S. Schafer & Emma S. Spiro & Kate Starbird & Jevin D. West, 2022. "Combining interventions to reduce the spread of viral misinformation," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(10), pages 1372-1380, October.
    11. Jesús Marolla-Gajardo & María Yazmina Lozano Mas, 2025. "Anti-Bullying in the Digital Age: How Cyberhate Travels from Social Media to Classroom Climate in Pre-Service Teacher Programmes," Societies, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-16, October.
    12. Sacha Altay & Emma Hoes & Magdalena Wojcieszak, 2025. "Following news on social media boosts knowledge, belief accuracy and trust," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(9), pages 1833-1842, September.
    13. Xuhao Shao & Ao Li & Chuansheng Chen & Elizabeth F. Loftus & Bi Zhu, 2023. "Cross-stage neural pattern similarity in the hippocampus predicts false memory derived from post-event inaccurate information," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    14. Hong, Ziyang & Liu, Qingfu & Tse, Yiuman & Wang, Zilu, 2023. "Black mouth, investor attention, and stock return," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    15. Krishna Dasaratha & Kevin He, 2022. "Learning from Viral Content," Papers 2210.01267, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    16. Berger, Lara Marie & Kerkhof, Anna & Mindl, Felix & Münster, Johannes, 2025. "Debunking “fake news” on social media: Immediate and short-term effects of fact-checking and media literacy interventions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    17. repec:hal:journl:hal-04693779 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Melchior, Cristiane & Warin, Thierry & Oliveira, Mirian, 2025. "An investigation of the COVID-19-related fake news sharing on Facebook using a mixed methods approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    19. Tuval Danenberg & Drew Fudenberg, 2024. "Endogenous Attention and the Spread of False News," Papers 2406.11024, arXiv.org.
    20. Jing, Fei & Zhang, Zhong & Wu, Jian-Liang & Hu, Die & Zhang, Zi-Ke, 2025. "Quantifying and predicting evolutionary networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    21. Molly Offer-Westort & Leah R. Rosenzweig & Susan Athey, 2024. "Battling the coronavirus ‘infodemic’ among social media users in Kenya and Nigeria," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 8(5), pages 823-834, May.

    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:ces:epofor:v:26:y:2025:i:04:p:17-20. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.