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The Fox News effect: More Republicans
The economists Stefano DellaVigna (UC Berkeley) and Ethan Kaplan (Stockholm University) have published the final version of their paper “The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (sub. req. – see also an earlier non-gated version). Here is the abstract, which summarizes a striking result that has apparently held
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Is inattention causing shift on Iraq?
A reader who prefers to remain anonymous suggests a parsimonious explanation for why Iraq “right decision” numbers are up in public opinion polls — inattention to the news during the summer due to vacations, etc. He did some preliminary analysis of the time series and couldn’t find enough data to draw a strong conclusion either
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Replicating the WSJ’s “Laffer curve” graph
Back on July 13, the Wall Street Journal editorial page published an editorial (sub. req.) claiming that “Lower corporate tax rates with fewer loopholes can lead to more, not less, tax revenue from business,” a claim that it attempted to support with this graphic: But as numerous bloggers pointed out at the time, the alleged
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David Carr, wacky punster
New York Times media columnist David Carr attempts an awkward riff today on the classic New York Post headline “Headless Body in Topless Bar”: What will The Journal be with Mr. Murdoch at the helm? At heart, he’s a tabloid newsman but critics expecting headlines like “Hedgeless Funds in Stop-Loss Market” may be disappointed. Uh,
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What a Democrat would inherit from Bush
With all their excitement about potentially taking back the White House, few Democrats seem to have given serious thought to what exactly they will be inheriting from President Bush. It’s increasingly clear to everyone that Bush will delay any serious withdrawal from Iraq until after he leaves office, forcing a Democratic president to withdraw and
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Robert Samuelson: Banal and wrong!
Mark Thoma distills the collected works of Robert Samuelson into three banal claims: Someone said that Robert Samuelson thinks three things are true, deficits are bad, there’s a demographic crisis coming, and both parties share the blame for any problem. Based upon these beliefs, he’s been writing the same column in one form or another
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No substantive reply from Brooks
When I criticized a David Brooks column last week, Matthew Yglesias linked to it and then noted the problem it highlights with the op-ed format: Brendan Nyhan gears up for battle with David Brooks’ anti-neo-populism and he’s backed up with a whole bunch of charts. This is a reminder, I think, of why we should
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Bush and Brown in “Golf Cart One”
Via my officemate MCB, the New York Times has an amusing picture of George W. Bush and Gordon Brown riding in “Golf Cart One”: I’ll open the caption contest in comments. Update 7/30 9:15 PM: Wonkette, which picked up the post, has many more caption suggestions in comments.
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Limbaugh’s latest anti-dissent agitprop
Via Andrew Sullivan, Rush Limbaugh is again suggesting that Democrats want to lose the war in Iraq and the war on terror and are on the side of Osama bin Laden: You look at the Democrat Party, look at their leaders and how they are trying to secure defeat in Iraq and secure defeat in
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Why are Iraq “right decision” numbers up?
With no significant evidence of progress in Iraq, why are poll numbers up for whether we made the right decision to invade? Here’s a New York Times Week in Review article on the puzzle: The Times and CBS News conducted a poll from July 9 to July 17 with 1,554 adults, mostly about Hillary Clinton…