Inattention or (Mis)Information? Explaining the Demand for Populist Anti-inflationary Policies

Philip Keefer and Lucas Ronconi

No 14480, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: Why are inefficient policies popular? One explanation is incomplete voter information. Evidence from survey experiments in Argentina points instead to inattention. The experiments explore voter evaluations of two anti-inflation policies, price controls and limits on monetary emission. Inattentive individuals should favor policies with simple, easily validated narratives, such as price controls; survey respondents considered price controls to be at least as effective in controlling inflation as limits to monetary emission. Two experimental treatments encouraged respondents to consider more complex policy narratives. Both increased respondent evaluations of the effectiveness of monetary policy relative to price controls. Inattention better accounts for these results: effects were independent of respondent knowledge and beliefs; larger for the evaluation of the more complex policy; and strongest for respondents who were more attentive to the survey. Treatment effects are also independent of the strength of partisan identity and ideological beliefs, indicating that these are low-cost cues for inattentive voters rather than signals of immutable beliefs regarding appropriate policies. The results underscore the role of attention in the spread of political narratives and their influence on voter behavior.

Keywords: rational inattention; cognitive effort; attention allocation; Voter Behavior; Populism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D72 D80 D83 E71 P30 P50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:14480

DOI: 10.18235/0013916

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