Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
10-2023
Abstract
We conduct a randomized online survey experiment to study the impact of fact-checking offers and financial incentives on misperceptions about immigrants. We find that natives overestimate the number of immigrants and the social and economic costs of immigration. Offering a free check of the factual information about immigrants reduces these misperceptions; it becomes more effective when combined with financial incentives. However, more than half of the participants never took up offers to check factual information. Using a model of information search with limited attention, we identify the presence of non-negligible costs of information search and processing, which limits the effectiveness of the fact-checking interventions. Finally, we find that the fact-checking interventions moderately improve natives' attitudes toward immigrants but affect neither their policy preferences nor giving behavior toward immigrants.
Keywords
Misperceptions, Immigrants, Incentives, Information, Policy preferences, Online experiment
Discipline
Behavioral Economics | Labor Economics
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
Publication
Labour Economics
Volume
84
First Page
1
Last Page
12
ISSN
0927-5371
Identifier
10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102428
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
CHOI, Syngjoo; CHOI, Chung-Yoon; and KIM.
Tackling misperceptions about immigrants with fact-checking interventions: A randomized survey experiment. (2023). Labour Economics. 84, 1-12.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2690
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102428