Information Networks and Collective Action: Evidence from the Women's Temperance Crusade

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Garcia-Jimeno, Camilo; Iglesias, Angel; Yildirim, Pinar
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180124
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 41-80
• 关键词: Social networks; GMM estimation; group-size; TECHNOLOGY; diffusion; protest; contagion; media; MODEL; mobilization

摘要

How do social interactions shape collective action, and how are they mediated by networked information technologies? We answer these questions studying the Temperance Crusade, a wave of anti-liquor protest activity spreading across 29 states between 1873 and 1874. Relying on exogenous variation in network links generated by rail -road accidents, we provide causal evidence of social interactions driving the diffusion of the movement, mediated by rail and telegraph information about neighboring activity. Local newspaper coverage of the crusade was a key channel mediating these effects. Using an event-study methodology, we find strong complementarities between rail and telegraph networks in driving the movement's spread. (JEL D83, J16, L92, L96, N31, N41, N71)