IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/intorg/v67y2013i02p411-437_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sensitivity to Issue Framing on Trade Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Ardanaz, Martin
  • Murillo, M. Victoria
  • Pinto, Pablo M.

Abstract

We explore the impact of issue framing on individual attitudes toward international trade. Based on a survey experiment fielded in Argentina during 2007, which reproduces the setup of earlier studies in the United States, we show that individuals' position in the economy and their material concerns define the strength of their prior beliefs about international trade, and thereby mitigate their sensitivity to the new dimensions introduced in informational cues. Extending the analysis beyond the United States to a country with different skill endowments allows us to better explore the role of material and nonmaterial attributes on individual attitudes toward trade. We find that skill is a central predictor of support for openness. The effect is strongest for individuals in the service sector and in cities that cater to the producers of agricultural commodities. Our findings suggest that the pattern of support for economic integration reflects the predictions from recent literature in international economics that emphasizes trade's impact on the relative demand for skilled labor regardless of factor endowments. Our findings also amend recent empirical contributions that suggest socialization is the main factor explaining individual sensitivity to issue framing on trade preferences. We suggest that material conditions associated with income and price effects are crucial, both in shaping trade preferences and in affecting the malleability of attitudes to issue framing. Hence, our results provide a crucial contribution to our general understanding of the attributes shaping susceptibility to political framing in policy debates.

Suggested Citation

  • Ardanaz, Martin & Murillo, M. Victoria & Pinto, Pablo M., 2013. "Sensitivity to Issue Framing on Trade Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 411-437, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:67:y:2013:i:02:p:411-437_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0020818313000076/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Federico Maria Ferrara & Jörg S Haas & Andrew Peterson & Thomas Sattler, 2022. "Exports vs. Investment: How Public Discourse Shapes Support for External Imbalances," Post-Print hal-02569351, HAL.
    2. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Stein, Ernesto H. & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2019. "Trade Attitudes in Latin America: Evidence from a Multi-Country Survey Experiment," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 9603, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Ronconi, Lucas & Kanbur, Ravi & López-Cariboni, Santiago, 2019. "Who Demands Labour (De)Regulation in the Developing World? Insider–Outsider Theory Revisited," IZA Discussion Papers 12831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Aleksandra Sojka & Jorge Diaz-Lanchas & Federico Steinberg, 2019. "The Politicization of Transatlantic Trade in Europe: Explaining Inconsistent Preferences Regarding Free Trade and the TTIP," JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis 2019-09, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    5. Federico M Ferrara & Waltraud Schelkle & Zbigniew Truchlewski, 2023. "What difference does the framing of a crisis make to European Union solidarity?," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 666-683, December.
    6. Nils D Steiner, 2018. "Attitudes towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in the European Union: The treaty partner heuristic and issue attention," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 255-277, June.
    7. Chun-Fang Chiang & Jason M. Kuo & Megumi Naoi & Jin-Tan Liu, 2020. "What Do Voters Learn from Foreign News? Emulation, Backlash, and Public Support for Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 27497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Michaël Aklin & Eric Arias & Julia Gray, 2022. "Inflation concerns and mass preferences over exchange‐rate policy," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 5-40, March.
    9. Carroll, Eamonn & Timmons, Shane & McGinnity, Frances, 2023. "Experimental tests of public support for disability policy," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS159, August.
    10. John Kuk & Deborah Seligsohn & Jiakun Jack Zhang, 2022. "The partisan divide in U.S. congressional communications after the China shock," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 494-526, July.
    11. Kanbur, Ravi & Ronconi, Lucas & López-Cariboni, Santiago, 2020. "Who demands labour (de)regulation in the developing world? Insider–outsider theory revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 14277, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Stein, Ernesto & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2021. "How issue framing shapes trade attitudes: Evidence from a multi-country survey experiment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    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:cup:intorg:v:67:y:2013:i:02:p:411-437_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ino .

    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.