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Virtue Signals

Author

Listed:
  • Deivis Angeli
  • Matt Lowe
  • The Village Team
  • Matthew Lowe

Abstract

We study whether tweets about racial justice predict the offline behaviors of nearly 20,000 US academics. In an audit study, academics that tweet about racial justice discriminate more in favor of minority students than academics that do not tweet about racial justice. Racial justice tweets are more predictive of race-related political tweets than political contributions, suggesting that visibility increases informativeness. In contrast, the informativeness of tweets is lower during periods of high social pressure to tweet about racial justice. Finally, most graduate students mispredict informativeness, more often underestimating than overestimating, reducing the welfare benefits of social media.

Suggested Citation

  • Deivis Angeli & Matt Lowe & The Village Team & Matthew Lowe, 2023. "Virtue Signals," CESifo Working Paper Series 10475, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10475
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    virtue signals; social signalling ; discrimination; audit experiment; political behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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