Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning
Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning Vincenzo Galasso Tommaso Nannicini Bocconi University, IGIER, CESIfo & CEPR Bocconi University, IGIER, IZA & CEPR Salvatore Nunnari Bocconi University, IGIER & CEPR December 31, 2020 Abstract Negative advertising is frequent in electoral campaigns, despite its ambiguous effec- tiveness: negativity may reduce voters’ evaluation of the targeted politician but have a backlash effect for the attacker. We study the effect of negative advertising in electoral races with more than two candidates with a large scale field experiment during an electoral campaign for mayor in Italy and a survey experiment in a fictitious mayoral campaign. In our field experiment, we find a strong, positive spillover effect on the third main candidate (neither the target nor the attacker). This effect is confirmed in our survey experiment, which creates a controlled environment with no ideological components nor strategic voting. The negative ad has no impact on the targeted in- cumbent, has a sizable backlash effect on the attacker, and largely benefits the idle candidate. The attacker is perceived as less cooperative, less likely to lead a successful government, and more ideologically extreme. Keywords: Electoral Campaign, Political Advertisement, Randomized Controlled Trial, Field Experiment, Survey Experiment. JEL Codes: D72, C90, M37. forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science ∗ Aniello Dell’Anno, Igor Cerasa, Enrico Di Gregorio, Valeria Ferraro, and Jacqueline Nguyen provided excellent research assistance. We thank Fabio Patritti at CE&CO, Massimo Di Filippo and Fabrizio Monaci at IPR Feedback for conducting the surveys, and Davide Baldi at DUDE for producing the graphics and the videos. Financial support from the European Research Council (Grant No.
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