Economic Interests, Worldviews and Identities: Theory and Evidence on Ideational Politics

We distinguish between ideational and interest-based appeals to voters on the supply side of politics, integrate Keynes-Hayek perspective importance ideas with Stigler-Becker approach emphasizing vested interests. In our model, political entrepreneurs discover identity worldview “memes” (narratives, cues, frames) that shift beliefs about voters’ identities or their views how world works. identify a complementarity politics illustrate they may reinforce each other. Furthermore, we show adverse economic shocks result in greater incidence politics. use these results analyze data 60,000 televised ads U.S. localities over years 2000 through 2018. Our empirical work quantifies provides support for key model implications, including impact higher inequality both politics. Institutional subscribers NBER working paper series, residents developing countries download this without additional charge at www.nber.org.