TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gentzkow,Matthew
AU  - Shapiro,Jesse M.
AU  - Sinkinson,Michael
TI  - The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15544
PY  - 2009
Y2  - November 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15544
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15544.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Matthew Gentzkow
University of Chicago
Booth School of Business
5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/834-2177
Fax: 773/702-0458
E-Mail: gentzkow@chicagobooth.edu

Jesse M. Shapiro
University of Chicago
Booth School of Business
5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/834-2688
Fax: 773-753-0563
E-Mail: jmshapir@uchicago.edu

Michael Sinkinson
E-Mail: msinkin@nber.org
AB  - We use new data on entries and exits of US daily newspapers from 1869 to 2004 to estimate effects on political participation, party vote shares, and electoral competitiveness. Our identification strategy exploits the precise timing of these events and allows for the possibility of confounding trends. We find that newspapers have a robust positive effect on political participation, with one additional newspaper increasing both presidential and congressional turnout by approximately 0.3 percentage points. Newspaper competition is not a key driver of turnout: our effect is driven mainly by the first newspaper in a market, and the effect of a second or third paper is significantly smaller. The effect on presidential turnout diminishes after the introduction of radio and television, while the estimated effect on congressional turnout remains similar up to recent years. We find no evidence that partisan newspapers affect party vote shares, with confidence intervals that rule out even moderate-sized effects. We find no clear evidence that newspapers systematically help or hurt incumbents.
ER  -