Public Policy, Political Polarization, and Promotions: A Study in Localized Diffusion of Public Policy Initiatives
46 Pages Posted: 6 Sep 2023
Date Written: June 6, 2023
Abstract
This paper examines the extent that political polarization moderates the effectiveness of promotions in driving public policy outcomes. Specifically, heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 vaccination promotions on county-level vaccination rates are studied to quantify the effect. A central challenge of this work is both accounting for the endogenous action of state-level officials and modeling the underlying diffusion pattern associated with vaccination rates. Blending the utility-based Bass Diffusion model of Cosguner and Seetharaman (2022) with counterfactual estimation techniques and machine learning solves the aforementioned challenges. Though other studies show a positive effect of promotions on vaccinations, this paper finds the opposite. Studying the estimated heterogeneous effects show that the underlying negative response is driven by vaccination hesitation and political ideology causing a backfire effect, which enhances an individual's resistance to vaccination. For example, counterfactual analysis shows that in regions where the promotions had a negative impact, the result is a 1.28% reduction in the vaccination rate per period. The net impact of these broad vaccination promotions is approximately 195,000 individuals delayed or forgo vaccination altogether. This paper shows that a backfire effect can manifest even with small incentives in a politically charged environment.
Keywords: political polarization, promotions, public policy, machine learning, diffusion models, COVID-19 vaccination
JEL Classification: C5, M3, H4
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