Horacio Larreguy

Voting Behavior in a Polarized Environment

In his most recent paper, “Accountability Under Polarization,” Horacio Larreguy and his collaborators study how information about government performance affects voting behavior in a polarized environment, and how this varies when additionally treating citizens with an anti-polarization nudge to incorporate counter-attitudinal information. In particular, they experimentally evaluate the electoral effects of a local CSO's Facebook ad campaign providing citizens with benchmarked information about COVID-19 cases and deaths in 500 Mexican municipalities in the run-up to the 2021 elections. On its own, the information had a backfiring effect, increasing (reducing) the vote share received by the local incumbent party with relatively high (low) levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The randomly assigned anti-polarization nudge, however, reversed the backfiring: voters electorally rewarded (punished) incumbents with relatively low (high) levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Their findings demonstrate how biases in information processing can undermine electoral accountability in polarized contexts, and document the potential for nudges to restore electoral accountability.  

Mr. Larreguy’s research is on Political Economy and Development, mostly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. He has particularly worked on the importance of information for political accountability, vote buying, and when education fosters political participation. More recently, motivated by the COVID-19 infodemic and increasing political polarization, he has implemented various projects on misinformation and accountability under polarization in Bolivia, Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.

At CESifo, Mr. Larreguy will be working with Annalí Casanueva on a project that aims at understanding how social media amplifies backlash against controversial actions of populist, polarizing leaders and leads to societal changes. In particular, they will be studying the Mexican President’s attempt to dismiss the demands of the March 8th protesters around the important rise of gender-based violence and femicides on the grounds that the right-wing opposition orchestrated the protests. This led to a strong backlash against the President on social media, which the researchers hypothesize might have coordinated opposition around gender issues in places where social media influencers who led the backlash against the President had more followers. Their outcomes of interest include female candidates in local offices, the extent of gender-based violence, and its reporting.

Horacio Larreguy is an Associate Professor of Economics and Political Science at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST) and Toulouse School of Economics (TSE). Before, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University. He has published in numerous leading academic journals and currently serves as Associate Editor of the Economic Journal. Horacio Larreguy holds a PhD in Economics from MIT, a Master in Economics and Finance from CEMFI, and a BA in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires.