How and When to Use the Political Cycle to Identify Advertising Effects

Moshary, Sarah, Bradley Shapiro, and Jihong Song. "How and when to use the political cycle to identify advertising effects." Marketing Science (2020).

40 Pages Posted: 20 Jun 2019 Last revised: 23 Nov 2020

See all articles by Sarah Moshary

Sarah Moshary

University of California, Berkeley - Marketing Group

Bradley Shapiro

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business

Jihong Song

Princeton University - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 9, 2020

Abstract

A central challenge in estimating the causal effect of TV advertising on demand is isolating quasi-random variation in advertising. Political advertising, which topped $14 billion in expenditures in 2016, has been proposed as a plausible source of such variation and thus a candidate for an instrumental variable. We provide a critical evaluation of how and where this instrument is valid and useful across categories. We characterize the conditions under which political cycles theoretically identify the causal effect of TV advertising on demand, highlight threats to the exclusion restriction and monotonicity condition, and suggest a specification to address the most serious concerns. We test the strength of the first stage category-by-category for 274 product categories. For most categories, weak-instrument robust inference is recommended, as first-stage F-statistics are less than 10 for at least 221 of 274 product categories in our benchmark specification. The largest first-stage F-statistics occur in categories that typically advertise locally, such as automobile dealerships and restaurants. Failure to use the suggested specification leads to results that suggest violations of exclusion and monotonicity in a significant number of categories. Finally, we conduct a case study of the auto industry. Despite a very strong first stage, the IV estimate for this category is imprecise.

Keywords: Advertising, Advertising Effectiveness, Political Advertising, Causal Effects, Instrumental Variables

JEL Classification: L10, L11, M31, M37, C26, C23, C81

Suggested Citation

Moshary, Sarah and Shapiro, Bradley and Song, Jihong, How and When to Use the Political Cycle to Identify Advertising Effects (June 9, 2020). Moshary, Sarah, Bradley Shapiro, and Jihong Song. "How and when to use the political cycle to identify advertising effects." Marketing Science (2020)., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3404343 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3404343

Sarah Moshary

University of California, Berkeley - Marketing Group ( email )

Haas School of Business
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

Bradley Shapiro (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

HOME PAGE: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/bradley.shapiro/

Jihong Song

Princeton University - Department of Economics ( email )

Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
United States

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