Influence Campaigns

Evan Sadler

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 3, 271-304

Abstract: Firms and politicians, among others, invest heavily to influence people's opinions. Because peers influence one another, these efforts must account for social networks. Using a model of opinion dynamics with a non-degenerate steady state, I develop a new measure of influence, and I highlight how opinion fluctuations impact influence campaigns. If agents interact less frequently with those holding different opinions, the variance of public opinion decreases. Consequently, a risk-averse planner focuses on persuading a large majority of agents in a small set of tightly knit groups, while a risk-loving planner makes much broader appeals.

JEL-codes: D11 D72 D83 D85 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20210387 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20210387.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:271-304

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/mic.20210387

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics is currently edited by Johannes Hörner

More articles in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().