Anti-muslim voting and media coverage of immigrant crimes
- Author(s)
- Mathieu Couttenier, Sophie Hatte, Mathias Thoenig, Stephanos Vlachos
- Abstract
We study how news coverage of immigrant criminality impacts voting in one of the most controversial referendums in recent years-the 2009 Swiss minaret ban. We combine a comprehensive crime detection data set with detailed information on newspaper coverage. We first document a large upward distortion in media reporting of immigrant crime during the prereferendum period. Exploiting quasi-random variations in crime incidence, we find a positive first-order effect of news coverage on support for the ban. Our quantification shows that, in absence of the media bias, the pro-ban vote would have decreased from 57.6% to 53.5% at the national level.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Economics
- External organisation(s)
- Université de Lausanne, Université de Lyon
- Journal
- The Review of Economics and Statistics
- Volume
- 106
- Pages
- 576-585
- No. of pages
- 10
- ISSN
- 0034-6535
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01152
- Publication date
- 12-2021
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 502021 Microeconomics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics, Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/antimuslim-voting-and-media-coverage-of-immigrant-crimes(deccdcf6-1fcc-4266-984a-465a2d16e46b).html