Assessing the unidimensionality of political opinions. An indirect test of the persuasion bias

Lionel Page

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 174, issue C, 469-477

Abstract: In an influential paper, (DeMarzo et al., 2003) propose a modelf of persuasion bias whereby people are overly influenced by repetitive information. Such a persuasion bias leads political opinions to be unidimensional with individuals converging to a single “left-right” dimension on every issues. Using a large dataset on political opinions on a wide range of issues just before a presidential election in France, I test whether political opinions are indeed unidimensional. I find that political opinions are far from being unidimensional and I discuss what it means for the persuasion model.

Keywords: Social preferences; Voting behavior; Online survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:174:y:2020:i:c:p:469-477

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.11.003

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