Information Networks and Collective Action: Evidence from the Women’s Temperance Crusade | Zendy

Camilo García-Jimeno | Zendy; Ángel Iglesias | Zendy; Pınar Yıldırım | Zendy

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

Author(s) -

Camilo García-Jimeno,

Ángel Iglesias,

Pınar Yıldırım

Publication year - 2021

Publication title -

american economic review

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 16.936

H-Index - 297

eISSN - 1944-7981

pISSN - 0002-8282

DOI - 10.1257/aer.20180124

Subject(s) - collective action , newspaper , action (physics) , variation (astronomy) , key (lock) , event (particle physics) , channel (broadcasting) , movement (music) , social movement , computer security , telecommunications , sociology , economic geography , political science , political economy , computer science , advertising , business , economics , law , physics , quantum mechanics , politics , astrophysics , philosophy , aesthetics

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 railroad 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)

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