Motte, Elliot
Contact Information
Available for interviews at
European Job Market for Economists (EEA)
Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA)
CV Job Market Paper
Research Interests
Primary: Political Economy
Secondary: Applied Microeconomics, Law and Economics, Environmental Economics
Placement Officer
Edouard Schaal
[email protected]
References
Ruben Durante (Advisor)
[email protected]
Maria Petrova (Advisor)
[email protected]
Roberto Galbiati
[email protected]
Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
[email protected]
Research
Insult Politics in the Age of Social Media (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: This paper studies the production of offensive content by politicians on Twitter/X. Applying state-of-the-art AI-based methods to the universe of tweets posted by members of the U.S. Congress (2017-2022), I measure the returns to offensive communication both in terms of online engagement and electoral support. I document that posting toxic tweets generates a sizable engagement premium and that these gains decrease with politicians' baseline toxicity. To examine how voters respond to offensive speech, I link the timing of toxic tweets to a large-scale electoral survey. Using an event study design around days marked by sharp spikes in representatives’ toxic tweeting activity, I find that voting intentions for the politician increase in the following week. The increase is concentrated among ideologically aligned voters, while opponents display lower electoral support, widening the partisan voting gap. These findings highlight the presence of both online and electoral incentives to the production of offensive communication, which comes at the expense of growing polarization.
Working Papers
Experience, Narratives and Climate Change Beliefs (with Milena Djourelova, Ruben Durante and Eleonora Patacchini), R&R at the Journal of the European Economic Association
Linking the location and timing of US-based natural disasters to large-scale electoral survey data, we study how the experience of a natural disaster affects climate change beliefs and how experience interacts with ideology. Contrary to the predictions of standard learning models, we find evidence for divergence in beliefs: exposure to the same disaster event increases stated climate change and environmental concerns among liberals but decreases them among conservatives, widening the ideological gap by 11-17%. We further provide evidence of conflicting ideological media discourse on climate change in the aftermath of disasters by applying GPT as a novel text annotation approach. Our findings are consistent with natural disasters making the debate around climate change and partisan cleavages on this issue more salient and further polarizing initial beliefs. We discuss implications for the timing of efforts to build consensus on climate action.
Work in Progress
Jury Composition and Sentencing Decisions (with Marie Beigelman)
Publications
Media Slant and Public Policy Views (with Milena Djourelova, Ruben Durante and Eleonora Patacchini). AEA Papers and Proceedings. May 2024
The Road to Recovery: The Role of Poverty in the Exposure, Vulnerability and Resilience to Floods in Accra (with A. Erman, R. Goyal, A. Asare, S. Takamatsu, X. Chen, S. Malgioglio, A. Skinner, N.Yoshida and S. Hallegatte). Economics of Disasters and Climate Change. February 2020