Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/262037 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1423
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
Ideological spillovers refer to the modification of an individual's core beliefs after learning about other people's beliefs. We study one specific international ideological spillover, namely, the effect of the unexpected election of a United States (US) president (Donald Trump on the 9th of November 2016), who openly questioned the so-called 'core liberal consensuses, on European's core political beliefs. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the election event, we show that the Trump presidential election (TPE) gave rise to a 'backlash effect'. That is, it steered core European beliefs in two specific domains, making Europeans more favourable to globalisation and international mobility (about 10% change in the overall Likert scale range of the statement that immigrants contribute to a country). Contrasting with the hypotheses of 'belief contagion', we do not find evidence that TPE steered illiberal beliefs. Furthermore, TPE improved (reduced) the view Europeans have of their own country (the United States).
Subjects: 
Political shocks
Belief formation
Information spillovers
Backlash effect
Pluralistic ignorance
Trump presidential election
Political beliefs
The social formation of beliefs
JEL: 
P16
D72
F50
Z10
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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