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Research project

Fact-Checking Politicians

This project has received funding via the EUI Research Council call 2020.

The accuracy of voters’ beliefs is crucial for the efficiency of democracy. Yet, “fake news” and “alternative facts” seems to have recently gained prominence in politics (Alcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Alcott et al. 2019). Is it the case that fact-checking politicians could reduce the spread of misinformation and improve the accuracy of voters’ beliefs? This project will shed light on this issue by designing and performing a novel field experiment aimed at measuring the extent to which politicians respond to fact-checking. The research design will rely on a randomized field experiment in collaboration with the leading Italian fact-checking company “Pagella Politica”.

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