|
on Network Economics |
|
Issue of 2019‒03‒04
three papers chosen by Pedro CL Souza Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro |
| By: | Richard Holden (UNSW Business School); Michael Keane (UNSW Business School); Matthew Lilley (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | Using data on essentially every US Supreme Court decision since 1946, we estimate a model of peer effects on the Court. We consider both the impact of justice ideology and justice votes on the votes of their peers. To identify these peer effects we use two instruments that generate plausibly exogenous variation in the peer group itself, or in the votes of peers. The first instrument utilizes the fact that the composition of the Court varies from case to case due to recusals or absences for health reasons. The second utilizes the fact that many justices previously sat on Federal Circuit Courts. Those who served on the Circuit Courts for short (long) periods of time are empirically much more (less) likely to affirm decisions from their “home” court. We find large peer effects. Replacing a single justice with one who votes in a conservative direction 10 percentage points more frequently increases the probability that each other justice votes conservative by 1.6 percentage points. Further, a 10% increase in the probability that a given justice votes conservative leads to a 1.1 percentage point increase in the probability that each other justice votes conservative. This indirect effect increases the share of cases with a conservative outcome by 3.6 percentage points (excluding the direct effect of the new justice). In general, we find indirect effects are large relative to the direct mechanical effect of a justice’s own vote. |
| Keywords: | Supreme Court, Peer Effects, Recusal |
| JEL: | K00 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2019-01&r=all |
| By: | Vivi Alatas; Arun G. Chandrasekhar; Markus Mobius; Benjamin A. Olken; Cindy Paladines |
| Abstract: | Celebrity endorsements are often sought to influence public opinion. We ask whether celebrity endorsement per se has an effect beyond the fact that their statements are seen by many, and whether on net their statements actually lead people to change their beliefs. To do so, we conducted a nationwide Twitter experiment in Indonesia with 46 high-profile celebrities and organizations, with a total of 7.8 million followers, who agreed to let us randomly tweet or retweet content promoting immunization from their accounts. Our design exploits the structure of what information is passed on along a retweet chain on Twitter to parse reach versus endorsement effects. Endorsements matter: tweets that users can identify as being originated by a celebrity are far more likely to be liked or retweeted by users than similar tweets seen by the same users but without the celebrities' imprimatur. By contrast, explicitly citing sources in the tweets actually reduces diffusion. By randomizing which celebrities tweeted when, we find suggestive evidence that overall exposure to the campaign may influence beliefs about vaccination and knowledge of immunization-seeking behavior by one's network. Taken together, the findings suggest an important role for celebrity endorsement. |
| JEL: | D85 I15 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25589&r=all |
| By: | Cohen, Shani; Gandal, Neil |
| Abstract: | A large literature has used patent data to measure knowledge spillovers across inventions but has not explicitly considered the collaboration networks formed by inventors as a mechanism for shaping these knowledge flows. Using a recently developed methodology, we examine the incidence and nature of knowledge flows mediated by the collaboration networks of inventors. We apply this methodology to three sectors in which programming skills are vital: (i) Information and Communication Technology/Information Security (ICT/IS) (ii) Financial Technology (Fin-Tech,) and (iii) Medical Technology (Med-Tech.) These are all areas of innovation in which Israel should have a comparative advantage. We find the following: (I) the quality of the Israeli ICT/information security inventions is systematically linked to the structure of the collaborative network. In particular, we find positive and significant direct and indirect knowledge spillovers. (II) We find no evidence of such spillovers in either Fin-Tech or Med-Tech. |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13467&r=all |