Working Papers

Flawed research can be harmful both within and outside of academia. Even when published research has been retracted and refuted by the scientific community, it may continue to be a source of misinformation. The media can play an important role in drawing broader attention to research, but may equally ensure that research, once retracted, ceases to feature in popular discourse. Yet, there is little evidence on whether media reporting influences the retraction process and authors’ careers. Using a conditional difference-in-differences strategy, this paper shows that articles that gained popularity in the media at publication and were subsequently retracted face heavy citation losses, while remaining citations become more accurate. Further, authors of such papers see a permanent decline in research output. Lastly, the paper provides evidence that media can influence both the likelihood of retraction and its timing, highlighting that the media can play an important role in contributing to the integrity of the research process.

As social media is increasingly popular, we examine the reputational costs of its increased centrality among academics. Analyzing posts of 98,000 scientists on Twitter (2016–2022) reveals substantial and varied political discourse. We assess the impact of such online political expression with online experiments on a representative sample of 3,700 U.S. respondents and 135 journalists who rate vignettes of synthetic academic profiles with varied political affiliations. Politically neutral scientists are viewed as the most credible. Strikingly, on both the ’left’ and ’right’ sides of politically neutral, there is a monotonic penalty for scientists displaying political affiliations: the stronger their posts, the less credible their profile and research are perceived, and the lower the public’s willingness to read their content, especially among oppositely aligned respondents. A survey of 128 scientists shows awareness of this penalty and a consensus on avoiding political expression outside their expertise.

The study uses a synthetic control method to estimate the local economic cost of Brexit. The vast majority of regions in the UK have lost as a result of Brexit. Since losses tend to be concentrated in relatively prosperous regions, Brexit has reduced regional inequalities (levelling up) while pushing down national output (levelling down in the aggregate). Using both aggregate data from local elections and individual-level survey data from the British Election Study, we find that, politically, those areas that experienced Brexit-related output losses saw increases in support for right-wing populist parties, while the electoral fortunes of the Labour party declined.

Do opinion polls sway turnout and shape political competition in majoritarian systems? Can they strengthen the persistence of safe seats? Analysing national opinion polls during UK general elections and the perceived safeness of constituencies, we find that pre-election polls significantly affect voter turnout. Non-competitive elections predicted by national polls suppress turnout, especially in areas with low perceived electoral competition. This reinforces the advantage of trailing parties in their strongholds, potentially fuelling party demand for safe seats that may give rise to demands for gerrymandering. This can exacerbate spatial polarization of the electoral landscape, with implications for governance regarding opinion polling.

We test whether AI-generated news images affect outlet demand and trust. In a pre-registered experiment with 2,870 UK adults, the same article was paired with a wire-service photo (with/without credit) or a matched AI image (with/without label). Average newsletter demand changes little. Ex-post photo origin recollection is poor, and many believe even the real photo is synthetic. Beliefs drive behavior: thinking the image is AI cuts demand and perceived outlet quality by about 10 p.p., even when the photo is authentic; believing it is real has the opposite effect. Labels modestly reduce penalties but do little to correct mistaken attributions.

We study the provision of information by local governments that supports individual compliance with nationwide regulation, and how this provision relates to the electoral process. We use information about individual mobility (compliance with the lockdown) and Facebook posts by Italian local governments during the Covid 19 pandemic. We show that in municipalities where mayors were up for reelection, local governments provided significantly more covid-related information. This information caused a significant decrease in mobility and excess mortality. However, these effects seem to arise only in the northern regions of the country, where the impact of the pandemic was more severe.

Using estimates of support for Leave across UK local authority areas constructed from a comprehensive 20,000 strong survey, we show that both the level and the geographic variation capturing differential degrees of support for Leave have changed significantly since the 2016 EU referendum. A lot of area characteristics, many of which were previously associated with higher levels of support for Leave, are now significant correlates capturing a swing towards Remain. They include, for example, the degree to which local authorities receive transfers from the EU or the extent to which their economies rely on trade with the EU, along with past electoral support for UKIP (and the BNP) and exposure to immigration from Eastern Europe. Lastly, exposure to austerity since 2010 is among the strongest individual correlates weakening the support for Leave. The evidence is consistent with the argument that the small margin of victory of Leave in 2016 was, to a significant extent, carried by protest voters, who used the EU referendum to voice their discontent with domestic social and economic developments, particularly, austerity. Lastly, we present some evidence suggesting that the UK public, even in Leave supporting areas, would be much more willing to make compromises on free movement and aspects of single market membership compared to what appears to be the UK governments negotiation objective.