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Free To Choose: A Text Analysis on the Diffusion of Economic Ideas on Politicians

Author

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  • Sara Caicedo-Silva

    (Universidad de los Andes)

Abstract

This paper examines if and how economic ideas spread across political language. The publication of the TV Series and the book Free to Choose (FC) by Milton and Rosa Friedman in 1980 serves as a tool to understand how economic ideas are popularized and adopted by politicians. Using natural language models, I compute the semantic similarity between FC and the interventions in congressional records from 1975 to 1985 to assess the change in political debate speeches in the US. I find that Democratic legislators increasingly adopted the rhetorical framing of FC, reaching or even surpassing Republicans in the similarity of their speeches relative to FC. This convergence was especially strong in debates on macroeconomic policy and foreign trade. These results suggest that FC amplified existing liberal ideas and transformed them into a shared language of both advocacy and critique within Congress.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Caicedo-Silva, 2026. "Free To Choose: A Text Analysis on the Diffusion of Economic Ideas on Politicians," Documentos CEDE 2026-13, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:022309
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    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstreams/handle/1992/78325/dcede202613.pdf
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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