Ideological alignment and evidence-based policy adoption

Jorge Garcia-Hombrados, Marcel Jansen, Angel Martinez, Berkay Ozcan, Pedro Rey-Biel and Antonio Roldan-Mones

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The implementation of evidence-based policies hinges on the dissemination of evidence to policymakers, a process influenced by the attributes of the sender. We conducted a nationwide RCT with ideologically opposite think tanks, major newspapers, and a research institution with nonsalient ideology to communicate a nonideological, cost-effective policy to local policymakers. Results show a 65 percent increase in policy adoption when informing institutions align ideologically with policymakers. We compare the impact of think tanks versus media outlets on implementation, finding both equally effective when ideologically aligned. We explore three actions where ideology may influence adoption: information exposure, belief updating and implementation.

JEL-codes: C93 D72 D78 D83 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2026-07-28
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Published in American Economic Review, 28, July, 2026, 116(7), pp. 2574 - 2603. ISSN: 0002-8282

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