[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/26897.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Virus of Fear: The Political Impact of Ebola in the U.S

Author

Listed:
  • Filipe R. Campante
  • Emilio Depetris-Chauvin
  • Ruben Durante
Abstract
We study how fear can affect the behavior of voters and politicians by looking at the Ebola scare that hit the U.S. a month before the 2014 midterm elections. Exploiting the timing and location of the four cases diagnosed in the U.S., we show that heightened concern about Ebola, as measured by online activity, led to a lower vote share for the Democrats in congressional and gubernatorial elections, as well as lower turnout, despite no evidence of a general anti-incumbent effect (including on President Obama's approval ratings). We then show that politicians responded to the Ebola scare by mentioning the disease in connection with immigration and terrorism in newsletters and campaign ads. This response came only from Republicans, especially those facing competitive races, suggesting a strategic use of the issue in conjunction with topics perceived as favorable to them. Survey evidence suggests that voters responded with increasingly conservative attitudes on immigration but not on other ideologically-charged issues. Taken together, our findings indicate that emotional reactions associated with fear can have a strong electoral impact, that politicians perceive and act strategically in response to this, and that the process is mediated by issues that can be plausibly associated with the specific fear-triggering factor.

Suggested Citation

  • Filipe R. Campante & Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Ruben Durante, 2020. "The Virus of Fear: The Political Impact of Ebola in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 26897, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26897
    Note: POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w26897.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liberini, Federica & Redoano, Michela & Proto, Eugenio, 2017. "Happy voters," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 41-57.
    2. Manuel Bagues & Berta Esteve-Volart, 2016. "Politicians’ Luck of the Draw: Evidence from the Spanish Christmas Lottery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1269-1294.
    3. Unknown, 2014. "Media Coverage 2014," 2014: Ethics, Efficiency and Food Security: Feeding the 9 Billion, Well, 26-28 August 2014 225573, Crawford Fund.
    4. Bandiera,Oriana & Buehren,Niklas & Goldstein,Markus P. & Rasul,Imran & Smurra,Andrea, 2019. "The Economic Lives of Young Women in the Time of Ebola : Lessons from an Empowerment Program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8760, The World Bank.
    5. Getmansky, Anna & Zeitzoff, Thomas, 2014. "Terrorism and Voting: The Effect of Rocket Threat on Voting in Israeli Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 588-604, August.
    6. José G. Montalvo, 2011. "Voting after the Bombings: A Natural Experiment on the Effect of Terrorist Attacks on Democratic Elections," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1146-1154, November.
    7. Matthias Flückiger & Markus Ludwig & Ali Sina Önder, 2019. "Ebola and State Legitimacy," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2064-2089.
    8. Ted Brader, 2005. "Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 388-405, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Khasanboev, Temurbek & Hessami, Zohal, 2023. "Crisis Management and Local Political Accountability," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277676, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Fernandez-Navia, Tania & Polo-Muro, Eduardo & Tercero-Lucas, David, 2021. "Too afraid to vote? The effects of COVID-19 on voting behaviour," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    3. Arthi, Vellore & Parman, John, 2021. "Disease, downturns, and wellbeing: Economic history and the long-run impacts of COVID-19," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Zohal Hessami & Temurbek Khasanboev, 2023. "Political selection when uncertainty is high," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 161-178, May.
    5. Leromain, Elsa & Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague, 2022. "Voting under threat: Evidence from the 2020 French local elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Bruno Carvalho & Susana Peralta & Joao Pereira dos Santos, 2020. "What and how did people buy during the Great Lockdown? Evidence from electronic payments," Working Papers ECARES 2020-20, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2022. "News coverage and mass shootings in the US," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    8. Egorov, Georgy & Enikolopov, Ruben & Makarin, Alexey & Petrova, Maria, 2021. "Divided we stay home: Social distancing and ethnic diversity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    9. Bruno P. Carvalho & Susana Peralta & João Pereira dos Santos, 2022. "Regional and sectorial impacts of the Covid‐19 crisis: Evidence from electronic payments," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 757-798, June.
    10. Nicolas Berman & Björn Brey & Jérémy Laurent-Lucchetti, 2023. "Panic politics on the US West Coast," Discussion Papers 2023-06, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    11. Helios Herrera & Maximilian Konradt & Guillermo Ordonez & Christoph Trebesch, 2020. "Corona Politics:The cost of mismanaging pandemics," PIER Working Paper Archive 20-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    12. Barry Eichengreen & Orkun Saka & Cevat Giray Aksoy, 2024. "The Political Scar of Epidemics," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(660), pages 1683-1700.
    13. Knight, Brian & Tribin, Ana, 2023. "Immigration and violent crime: Evidence from the Colombia-Venezuela Border," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    14. Maffioli, Elisa M., 2021. "The political economy of health epidemics: Evidence from the Ebola outbreak," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    15. Bram De Rock & Florine Le Henaff, 2023. "Walk the talk: Measuring green preferences with social media data," IFS Working Papers W23/34, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Singh, Renu, 2023. "Priming COVID-19's consequences can increase support for investments in public health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    17. Gallego, Jorge & Prem, Mounu & Vargas, Juan F., 2020. "Corruption in the Times of Pandemia," Working papers 43, Red Investigadores de Economía.
    18. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_014 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Eichengreen, Barry & Saka, Orkun, 2020. "The Political Scar of Epidemics," IZA Discussion Papers 13351, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Jiménez, Bruno, 2023. "The Political economy of the minimum wage," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    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. Benny Geys & Øystein Hernæs, 2021. "Party leaders and voter responses to political terrorism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 187(3), pages 481-499, June.
    2. Walter Bossert & Andrew E. Clark & Conchita d'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2019. "Economic Insecurity and the Rise of the Right," PSE Working Papers halshs-02325984, HAL.
    3. Emine Arı & Reşat Bayer & Özge Kemahlıoğlu & Ece Kural, 2024. "Avoiding fallout from terrorist attacks: The role of local politics and governments," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(2), pages 263-278, March.
    4. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Elsayed, Ahmed, 2020. "Global terror, well-being and political attitudes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    5. Athina Economou & Christos Kollias, 2019. "Security policy preferences of EU citizens: Do terrorist events affect them?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 445-471, March.
    6. Nicolas Berman & Björn Brey & Jérémy Laurent-Lucchetti, 2023. "Panic politics on the US West Coast," Discussion Papers 2023-06, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    7. Emilio Colombo & Valentina Rotondi & Luca Stanca, 2022. "The Day After the Bomb: Well-Being Effects of Terrorist Attacks in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 115-132, February.
    8. Gan Jin & Md Rafiul Karim & Günther G. Schulze, 2024. "The Stock Market Effects of Islamist versus Non-Islamist Terror," Discussion Paper Series 45 JEL Classification: D7, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Feb 2024.
    9. M. Akif Yardimci, 2024. "Terrorism, counter‐terrorism, and voting: The case of Turkey," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 901-927, July.
    10. Liberini, Federica & Oswald, Andrew J. & Proto, Eugenio & Redoano, Michela, 2019. "Was Brexit triggered by the old and unhappy? Or by financial feelings?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 287-302.
    11. Fiorini, Luciana C. & Jetter, Michael & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Parsons, Christopher, 2020. "The Effect of Community Size on Electoral Preferences: Evidence From Post-WWII Southern Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 13724, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Boldrini, Michela & Conzo, Pierluigi & Fiore, Simona & Zotti, Roberto, 2023. "Blaming migrants doesn’t pay: the political effects of the Ebola epidemic in Italy," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202320, University of Turin.
    13. Gallego, Jorge & Prem, Mounu & Vargas, Juan F., 2020. "Corruption in the Times of Pandemia," SocArXiv js8by, Center for Open Science.
    14. Alessandro Belmonte, 2020. "Punishing or Rallying ‘Round the Flag? Heterogeneous Effects of Terrorism in South Tyrol," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 511, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Lockwood, Ben, 2017. "Confirmation Bias and Electoral Accountability," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 11(4), pages 471-501, February.
    16. Roberto Ramos & Carlos Sanz, 2018. "Backing the incumbent in difficult times: the electoral impact of wildfires," Working Papers 1810, Banco de España.
    17. Chen, Shuai, 2022. "Rally Post-Terrorism," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1065, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier B. & Elsayed, Ahmed, 2018. "Everybody's a Victim? Global Terror, Well-Being and Political Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 11597, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Jiménez, Bruno, 2023. "The Political economy of the minimum wage," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    20. Milos Popovic, 2022. "Strongmen cry too: The effect of aerial bombing on voting for the incumbent in competitive autocracies," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(6), pages 844-859, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:26897. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.