Calendrier du 04 juin 2020
Macroeconomics Seminar
Du 04/06/2020 de 15:45 à 17:00
PSE - 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, salle R2-21
WANG Olivier (NYU Stern)
POSTPONED
TOM (Théorie, Organisation et Marchés) Lunch Seminar
Du 04/06/2020 de 14:00 à 15:00
online
SHABAYEK Shaden (PSE)
Hidden Opinions
I provide a behavioral foundation for opinion polarization, by formalizing an opinion sharing dynamic game. I consider a centrality measure which is inversely related to the number of influence sources of acquaintances. I call this centrality measure local popularity. Facing a social cost, e.g peer pressure or cognitive dissonance or even the possibility of social isolation, individuals with low local popularity optimally choose to hide their opinions and share opinions heard within their social circles. They choose to be consensual. Other individuals, who face a lower social cost due to their high local popularity or expertise, optimally choose to express their opinion. Such individuals who choose to express can update their viewpoint based on the opinions of neighbors who also express; expressing allows players to debate over an issue. Expressers can undergo repulsive influence from a neighbor with ideologically opposed views. When choosing to express or hide, they evaluate the cost related to each action as a function of their network position summarized by their local popularity. Individuals fail to internalize the effect of their chosen binary action on the overall dynamics of opinions in the long-run. In particular, they are myopic. First, I show that opinion updating with those two types of individuals yields a reducible influence system, and I show that opinions converge in the long-run. Second, I characterize two specific patterns of long-run opinions: consensus and polarization. I provide conditions on the network for which the interaction between both types of individuals leads to local consensus and a global polarization of opinions in society. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a behavioral framework to assess long-run opinion polarization, which departs from models of social influence with non-strategic agents.
PEPES (Paris Empirical Political Economics) Working Group
Du 04/06/2020 de 12:30 à 14:00
ZOOM
VOTH Joachim (University of Zurich)
Contagious Extremism: Nazi Marches and Radical Voting
écrit avec David Yanagizawa-Drott, Bruno Caprettini, and Marcel Caesmann
How do extremist movements go ‘viral’? To answer this question, we examine the rise of the Nazi Party in Hamburg in 1932. The July 1932 parliamentary election saw the Nazi Party’s biggest triumph before coming to power. In the preceding period, the Nazi party staged massive marches. We examine how these public shows of strength created growing support for the Nazi movement. Areas close to the marching route saw much larger electoral gains. Wide streets were favored because they made marching columns look more impressive. We exploit this fact in our IV strategy, and find large effects. In addition, social network linkages across neighborhoods facilitated the spread of extremism throughout the city. The new data on the characteristics and location of more than 400,000 households show that, even in areas far from the marching routes, gains for the Nazi party were more sizable where numerous inhabitants had connections with others who witnessed the march.
Behavior seminar
Du 04/06/2020 de 11:00 à 12:00
ALGAN Yann (SciencesPo – Ecole d’Affaires Publiques)
ANNULE
Travail et économie publique externe
Du 04/06/2020 de 11:00 à 12:00
Using ZOOM
LE BARBANCHON Thomas (Bocconi)
Job Search during the COVID-19 Crisis
écrit avec Lena Hensvik (Uppsala), Roland Rathelot (Warwick)
This paper measures the job-search responses to the COVID-19 pandemic using real-time data on vacancy postings and ad views on Sweden's largest online job board. First, vacancy postings drop by 40%, similar to the US. Second, job seekers respond by searching less intensively, to the extent that effective labour market tightness textit{increases}. Third, they redirect their search towards less severely hit occupations, beyond what changes in labour demand would predict. Overall, these job search responses have the potential to amplify the labour demand shock.