Thesis title:
Research project title: Internet and the Allocation of U.S. Federal Expenditures
Abstract:
Politicians channel more public resources to voters informed about politics so as to increase their chances of re-election. The dramatic change in the news media market poses the need to study whether this evidence is also present in areas with high Internet access, since it has increased the bulk of information available to citizens. In this project I study whether U.S. counties with high Internet access receive more funds from the federal government in the period of fastest Internet adoption (1999-2008). The preliminary results show that it is indeed the regions where access to this technology is lower the ones that receive more federal funds. This agrees with previous evidence on entertainment media. Further work will focus on the composition of voter turnout, being one of the potential mechanisms driving these results.
First supervisor:
Marco Manacorda
Pathway:
4 – Economics, Finance & the World Economy
Cohort:
2019-20