Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14312
Authors: Vincenzo Galasso; Tommaso Nannicini; Salvatore Nunnari
Abstract: Negative advertising is frequent in electoral campaigns, despite its ambiguous effectiveness: negativity may reduce voters' evaluation of the targeted politician but have a backlash effect for the attacker. We study the effect of negative advertising in electoral races with more than two candidates with a large scale field experiment during an electoral campaign for mayor in Italy and a survey experiment in a fictitious mayoral campaign. In our field experiment, we find a strong, positive spillover effect on the third main candidate (neither the target nor the attacker). This effect is confirmed in our survey experiment, which creates a controlled environment with no ideological components nor strategic voting. The negative ad has no impact on the targeted incumbent, has a sizable backlash effect on the attacker, and largely benefits the idle candidate. The attacker is perceived as less cooperative, less likely to lead a successful government, and more ideologically extreme.
Keywords: electoral campaign; political advertisement; randomized controlled trial; field experiment; survey experiment
JEL Codes: D72; C90; M37
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| perceptions of candidate cooperation and competence (D79) | increased support for the idle candidate (D79) |
| perceptions of candidate cooperation and competence (D79) | decrease in the attacker's vote share (D79) |
| negative advertising (M38) | increased support for the idle candidate (D79) |
| negative advertising (M38) | no significant impact on the targeted incumbent (F69) |
| negative advertising (M38) | decrease in the attacker's vote share (D79) |