We analyze a game theoretic model of social learning about a consumption good with endogenous timing and heterogeneous accuracy of private information. We show that if individuals value their reputation for the degree to which they are informed, this reduces the incentive to learn by observing...

This study investigates the effects of variation in "congeniality" of news on Facebook user engagement (likes, shares, and comments). We compile an original data set of Facebook posts by 84 German news outlets on politicians that were investigated for criminal offenses from January 2012 to June...

How to understand the mistakes we make about those on the other side of the political spectrum—and how they drive the affective polarization that is tearing us apart.It's well known that the political divide in the United States—particularly between Democrats and Republicans—has grown to...

The recent nonexperimental literature on social learning focuses on showing that observational learning exists, that is, individuals do indeed draw inferences by observing the actions of others. We take this literature a step further by analyzing whether individuals are Bayesian social learners....

The recent nonexperimental literature on social learning focuses on showing that observational learning exists, that is, individuals do indeed draw inferences by observing the actions of others. We take this literature a step further by analyzing whether individuals are Bayesian social learners....

Variation in political slant across media outlets, and demand for such slant, has been studied extensively. We conduct a novel within-outlet (and within-topic) analysis of the demand for "congenially" slanted news. We study so-called horse race news from six major online outlets for the 2012 and...

We report results from a campus project in which participants volunteered to increase their exposure to news from diverse viewpoints for an extended period of time. Specifically, participants read email newsletters from the three leading US cable news stations, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, every...

I briefly summarize the economics literature on ideologically slanted political media (which I call, for short, partisan news), and discuss directions for future research. In the literature review, I take a history of thought approach, describing how theory and empirical work have fed off one...