TY - JOUR PY - 2022// TI - Information networks and collective action: evidence from the women's temperance crusade JO - American economic review A1 - GarcĂ­a-Jimeno, Camilo A1 - Iglesias, Angel A1 - Yildirim, Pinar SP - 41 EP - 80 VL - 112 IS - 1 N2 - How do social interactions shape collective action, and how are they mediated by networked information technologies? We answer these questions studying the Temperance Crusade, a wave of anti-liquor protest activity spreading across 29 states between 1873 and 1874. Relying on exogenous variation in network links generated by railroad accidents, we provide causal evidence of social interactions driving the diffusion of the movement, mediated by rail and telegraph information about neighboring activity. Local newspaper coverage of the crusade was a key channel mediating these effects. Using an event-study methodology, we find strong complementarities between rail and telegraph networks in driving the movement's spread.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0002-8282 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.20180124 ID - ref1 ER -