Science under Threat? A Natural Experiment in Economics

Dominic Rohner, Oliver Vanden Eynde and Philine Widmer

No 21228, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Academic freedom has come under growing strain across the world. To study whether and how academics react to political pressure, we exploit a natural experiment: the U.S. government's "blacklist" of undesirable words released in early 2025. We find that the release of this list leads to a sharp reduction in the use of banned words in sensitive contexts among economists working at universities that rely heavily on NSF funding. The drop is particularly marked for content related to gender, race, and environment. Our findings are consistent with scholars responding strongly to political pressure through career incentives.

Keywords: Censorship; Science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 I23 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
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