Working Paper: NBER ID: w27497
Authors: Chunfang Chiang; Jason M. Kuo; Megumi Naoi; Jintan Liu
Abstract: The paper demonstrates voter-based mechanisms underlying policy emulation across countries. We argue that exposure to news about foreign government policies and their effect can change policy preferences of citizens through emulation and backlash against it. These heterogeneous responses arise due to citizens’ divergent predispositions about a foreign country being their peer. We test this argument with coordinated survey experiments in Japan and Taiwan, which randomly assigned news reporting on the South Korea-China trade agreement and solicited support for their government signing an agreement with China. The results suggest that exposure to the news decreases opposition to a trade agreement with China by 6 percentage points in Taiwan (“emulation”) and increases opposition around 8 percentage points in Japan (“backlash”). The results further suggest respondents’ predispositions about peer countries account for the heterogeneity. Our findings caution the optimism about policy convergence across countries as technology lowers the cost of acquiring information.
Keywords: Voter Preferences; Trade Agreements; Policy Emulation; Backlash; Foreign News
JEL Codes: D7; F13; L82
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Perception of South Korea as a peer (F01) | Support for government's adoption of similar policies (H10) |
| Rating South Korea as dissimilar to Japan (P59) | Backlash effect in opposition to a trade agreement with China (F69) |
| Exposure to news about South Korea's successful trade agreement (F13) | Decrease in opposition to a trade agreement with China among Taiwanese respondents (F13) |
| Exposure to news about China's successful trade agreement (F13) | Increase in opposition to a trade agreement with China among Japanese respondents (F69) |