Social Media and Government Responsiveness: Evidence from Vaccine Procurement in China
Friday, December 1, 202312:00 PM - 1:20 PM (Pacific)
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall
SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2023)
Friday, December 1, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way
Social Media and Government Responsiveness: Evidence from Vaccine Procurement in China
This research studies how public opinion on social media affected local governments' procurement of vaccines in China during 2014-2019. To establish causality, we exploit city-level variation in the eruption of online opinion on vaccine safety, instrumented by quasi-random early penetration of social media. We find that governments in cities exposed to stronger social media shocks increased the share of more transparent procurement and reduced home bias by procuring more vaccines from nonlocal producers. The effect is driven by posts expressing anti-government sentiment instead of posts containing investigative information and is larger in cities where local officials face higher top-down political pressure.
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About the Speaker
Yanhui Wu is an economist whose research concentrates on two areas: media economics and organizational economics. In media economics, he studies the political economy of mass media, particularly the underexplored subject of the media in China. In organizational economics, his research focuses on the organization of knowledge-intensive activities, particularly in the digital economy. Recently, he has worked with data scientists to develop new big data methods and apply them to the social sciences. His work has been published at top economics, management, and statistics journals, including the American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science, Organization Science, and the Journal of American Statistical Association.
Yanhui Wu is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Hong Kong and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics in 2011. Prior to his doctoral study, he was an award-winning financial journalist in China.
A NOTE ON LOCATION
Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.