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The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era
Author(s) -
McConnell Christopher,
Margalit Yotam,
Malhotra Neil,
Levendusky Matthew
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/ajps.12330
Subject(s) - politics , polarization (electrochemistry) , reservation , preference , political science , political economy , population , politics of the united states , economics , social psychology , psychology , sociology , microeconomics , law , demography , chemistry
With growing affective polarization in the United States, partisanship is increasingly an impediment to cooperation in political settings. But does partisanship also affect behavior in nonpolitical settings? We show evidence that it does, demonstrating its effect on economic outcomes across a range of experiments in real‐world environments. A field experiment in an online labor market indicates that workers request systematically lower reservation wages when the employer shares their political stance, reflecting a preference to work for co‐partisans. We conduct two field experiments with consumers and find a preference for dealing with co‐partisans, especially among those with strong partisan attachments. Finally, via a population‐based, incentivized survey experiment, we find that the influence of political considerations on economic choices extends also to weaker partisans. Whereas earlier studies show the political consequences of polarization in American politics, our findings suggest that partisanship spills over beyond the political, shaping cooperation in everyday economic behavior.