Economic Distress and Electoral Consequences: Evidence from Appalachia
利用阿巴拉契亚地区委员会的数据和断点回归设计，研究发现当最贫困的县被标记为“经济困境”时，后续选举中民主党得票率上升，这一效应可能与地方新闻报道有关。
Abstract Information about inequality can change political attitudes in lab and survey experiments. I use data from the Appalachian Regional Commission and a regression discontinuity design to test whether salient information about local poverty can impact voter behavior in a field setting. I find that when the poorest decile of counties is labeled “economically distressed,” the Democratic share of the Presidential and House popular vote rises in subsequent elections. I present suggestive evidence linking this result to local news coverage, rather than spending or other outcomes.