Special interests and the media: Theory and an application to climate change

Shapiro, Jesse M.

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.10.004

Cited by 43 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 77 publications

(93 reference statements)

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“…Another assumption is that, in the absence of miscommunication, scientific knowledge disseminates widely and with no additional cost to citizens. In reality, knowledge diffusion may be imperfect and costly, and may depend on decisions by other agents such as journalists and media owners (Shapiro 2016). More generally, misperceptions may have a variety of causes, such as lack of Bayesian rationality.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Manufacturing doubt

Bramoullé

Orset

2018

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

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In their efforts to affect regulations, firms have developed specific strategies to exploit scientific uncertainty. They have manufactured doubt by hiring and funding dissenting scientists, by producing and publicizing favorable scientific findings and by generally concealing their involvement in biased research. We propose a new model to study the interplay between scientific uncertainty, firms' miscommunication and public policies. The government is benevolent but populist, and maximizes social welfare as perceived by citizens. The industry can produce costly reports showing that its activity is not harmful. Citizens are unaware of the industry's miscommunication. We first characterize the industry's optimal miscommunication policy. The industry notably ceases miscommunicating abruptly when scientists' belief reaches a critical threshold. We identify a natural condition under which miscommunication is stronger under a tax on emissions than under command and control. We then analyze research funding. A populist government may support research to enable firms to falsely reassure citizens. Establishing an independent research agency helps limit the welfare losses induced by populist policies.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, scientific progress plays no role in his analysis. Baron (2005) and Shapiro (2016) model competition between special interests to seek political influence through the news media. They adopt a coarse representation of science where evidence is either uninformative or fully informative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Manufacturing doubt

Bramoullé

Orset

2018

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

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“…In a binary model (binary state and binary action choices for the citizens) the sender tries to influence the beliefs of citizens by sending public signals, and they derive the equilibrium level of media bias. Shapiro (2016) applies the idea of persuasion by multiple senders to climate change. Referring to the fact that media balances both scientific and political views on climate change, and the public does not reach a consensus on global warming, they suggest a political economy model, where the receiver is a voter, who has binary choices, and seeks information about a binary state variable.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Information Design in Coalition Formation Games

Vosooghi

2017

SSRN Journal

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I examine a setting, where an information sender conducts research into a payoff-relevant state variable, and releases information to agents, who consider joining a coalition. The agents' actions can cause harm by contributing to a public bad. The sender, who has commitment power, by designing an information mechanism (a set of signals and a probability distribution over them), maximises his payoff, which depends on the action taken by the agents, and the state variable. I show that the coalition size, as a function of beliefs of agents, is an endogenous variable, induced by the information sender. The optimal information mechanism from the general set of public information mechanisms, in coalition formation games is derived. I also apply the results to International Environmental Agreements (IEAs), where a central authority, as an information sender, attempts to reduce the global level of greenhouse gases (GHG) by communication of information on social cost of GHG.

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“…This strategy aims to crowd out other, unsponsored, research and relies upon the covert nature of its funding for success. Shapiro () develops a model in which a journalist reports the state of the world to a voter who chooses a policy. The journalist's desire to maintain a reputation for being unbiased can lead him to adopt a policy of “balanced reporting,” in which he reports claims by special interests even when he knows they are not true.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merchants of doubt: Corporate political action when NGO credibility is uncertain

Chiroleu‐Assouline

Lyon

2020

Economics Manag Strategy

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The literature on special interest groups emphasizes two main influence channels: campaign contributions and informational lobbying. We introduce a third channel: providing information about the credibility of political rivals. In particular, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) often aim to communicate scientific knowledge to policymakers, but industry-backed groups often attempt to undermine their credibility. We extend a standard signaling model of interest-group lobbying to include fixed costs of policymaker action and show that these costs make possible two mechanisms for creating doubt about the value of policy action. The first uses Bayesian persuasion to suggest the NGO may be a noncredible radical. The second involves creating an opposition think tank (TT) that acts as a possible radical, not a credible moderate. We show that the TT cannot always implement the Bayesian persuasion benchmark, and we characterize how optimal TT design varies with exogenous parameters.

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Special interests and the media: Theory and an application to climate change

Cited by 43 publications

References 77 publications

Manufacturing doubt

Manufacturing doubt

Information Design in Coalition Formation Games

Merchants of doubt: Corporate political action when NGO credibility is uncertain

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