Cost-effective and equitable climate change mitigation requires the transfer of resources from developed to developing countries. In two behavioral experiments, we demonstrate that American subjects act according to a strong home preference, by making private donations and writing letters in support of public spending more often for mitigation programs located at home versus those overseas. We attempt to overcome the preference to act at home by randomly informing some subjects that foreign programs are more cost-effective than domestic programs. Home preference is mitigated only in the case of private donations. From a separate experimental treatment, we show that the preference against foreign programs is exacerbated when the co-benefits of mitigation programs are made salient. Importantly, home preference crosses party lines, indicating that it is a deep-seeded, affective preference. These findings highlight significant political obstacles to international cooperation on climate change that relies on transfers.

This paper investigates the impact of communication in a public good game with a central authority. The central authority includes a fixed cost that increases with the level of monitoring which in turn determines the level of deterrence. The level of monitoring is both exogenously and endogenously determined. Across three treatments subjects either have no opportunity to communicate, communicate only when the level of monitoring is exogenously imposed, or communicate only when the level of monitoring is endogenously selected. Results suggest that, in both treatments, average earnings are significantly higher with the opportunity to communicate. Most significantly, with the opportunity to communicate prior to endogenous selection, groups practically eliminate monitoring (imposing a low cost, non-deterrent, central authority), while maintaining a high level of contributions. Communication appears to make groups less dependent on institutional deterrence and allows them to reduce the costs of central authority.

To date, while there is a rich literature describing the determinants of anti-immigrant sentiment, researchers have not identified a mechanism to reduce antipathy toward immigrants. In fact, extant research has shown that efforts to induce positive attitudes toward immigrants often backfire. What if a bridging frame strategy were employed? Can a bipartisan issue area in which there is general support act as a bridging frame to elicit more positive sentiment toward immigration among those who oppose more open immigration policies? We explore this question by conducting two survey experiments in which we manipulate whether immigration is linked with the bipartisan issue area of human trafficking. We find that in forcing individuals to reconcile the fact that a widely accepted issue position of combating trafficking also requires a reassessment of immigration policies, we can positively shift attitudes on immigration.

Ideologically impure candidates—RINOs and DINOs—risk losing the endorsement of their fellow copartisans. However, which copartisans? In this article, I assess how party affiliation and the strength of partisan affiliation condition the evaluation of ideologically impure, non-prototypical candidates. Using a nationally representative survey experiment, I present evidence that while partisans negatively evaluate non-prototypical copartisans, there is not a consistent relationship between strength of identification and the degree of punitiveness. Moreover, candidate non-prototypicality causes convergence in candidate support between Republicans and Democrats. My results provide evidence that nominal partisan affiliation is by itself insufficient to save an ideologically non-prototypical candidate from the rebuke of fellow copartisans and thus that the “in-name-only” charge holds some weight.

Researchers using survey experiments typically assume respondents are blank slates, encountering information for the first time. We study how prior real-world information dissemination through the mass media shapes experimental results. We show prior exposure can lead us to both under- and overestimate true framing effects in experiments. Message clarity moderates the impact of pre-treatment, with clear information more likely to produce pre-treatment effects than unclear information.

Following the 2016 U.S. election, researchers and policymakers have become intensely concerned about the dissemination of “fake news,” or false news stories in circulation (Lazer et al., 2017). Research indicates that fake news is shared widely and has a pro-Republican tilt (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017). Facebook now flags dubious stories as disputed and tries to block fake news publishers (Mosseri, 2016). While the typical misstatements of politicians can be corrected (Nyhan et al., 2017), the sheer depth of fake news’s conspiracizing may preclude correction. Can fake news be corrected?