Events like the Brexit vote and the Trump election signified a shift away from globalism towards more nationalist leanings. These events were also typified by a general failure of facts and evidence to drive voter behavior. Research from Tuck explores whether facts can actually play a role in shifting attitudes back toward globalization again.
To answer this question, researchers did surveys with a group of people that represented the U.S. population from 2018 to 2022. They learned some things that they expected, and some things that were surprising.
Attitudes toward trade
In the surveys, they shared four different sets of information, each chosen randomly. These sets of information talked about what economic researchers have found about trade – how it can be good or bad for different things.
Here are the four sets of information:
- Trade Hurts Jobs: When we buy more things from China, it can make it harder for American factory workers to find jobs.
- Trade Helps Jobs: Buying more things from China can make America focus more on providing services instead of making goods.
- Trade Helps Prices: Buying things from China can make stuff in America cheaper.
- Tariffs Hurt Prices: The taxes added on imports in 2018 made things more expensive and lowered how much money people had.
After showing these sets of information, the surveys asked questions to find out what the people liked in terms of trade rules, like import taxes, free trade deals, and the lowest pay allowed.
Not surprisingly, when people heard the “Trade Hurts Jobs” idea, they were more likely to say they want limits on imports. This made them seem more like the Republican party in the U.S. The researchers say this shift is like making people “one-third more Republican.”
Things got more interesting when people heard about the good sides of trade. When they heard the “Trade Helps Jobs” idea, they started to prefer more rules on trade.
Shifting perspectives
“Even more strikingly,” the authors explain, “exposing participants to either the ‘Trade Helps Prices’ or the ‘Tariff Hurts Prices’ information induces a strong protectionist response: learning that imports from China have contributed to lower prices, or that the recent tariffs on these imports have hurt U.S. consumers, still raises respondents’ propensity to favor more limits on imports.”
The authors believe that these responses highlight that there isn’t a symmetrical response to information, especially when it highlights the benefits of trade rather than the losses. For instance, some people disliked trade even more when they heard about the benefits.
The researchers started to explore the reasons for this, and particularly on whether there was a correlation between one’s political affiliations and one’s attitude toward trade policy.
“If you told a Republican supporter that trade has hurt jobs, it accentuates their preferences,” the researchers explain. “But if you tell them that trade has had some benefits, that also amplifies their protectionist tendencies. So it’s almost like they double down on their pre-held beliefs.”
Polarized view
The same trend was observed among supporters of the Democratic party. However, their views on trade restrictions were a bit different. This change matched the Democratic party’s recent trade policies that are more open to free trade. When they were told about the benefits of trade, they were less interested in protective measures. But if they heard about trade causing problems, they also became less interested in protection.
To learn more about why some people wanted more limits on trade, the researchers asked them directly about their earlier beliefs. These people were most worried about things being imported from countries like China and about Americans losing jobs. The researchers think these worries played a big role in how these people answered the survey. This situation might teach us something important about people: changing what they already believe is really hard. Even when given facts, it didn’t change much in this case.
“If you want to try to persuade people with evidence that there are benefits to trade,” the researchers conclude, “you’re probably not going to do it unless you figure out how to address their pre-held concerns, whether these might stem from their political identity, or their prior concerns about American jobs or about trade with China. In fact, you could end up intensifying their beliefs.”
