Ideological Alignment and Evidence-Based Policy Adoption

This paper investigates how the ideological alignment between knowledge-disseminating institutions and policymakers affects the adoption of evidence-based policies. The core research question is whether, and through which mechanisms, the ideology of the messenger — rather than the content of the message — determines whether local policymakers act on rigorous research evidence.

The authors conduct a country-wide randomized controlled trial (RCT) across 5,678 touristic Spanish municipalities. The policy recommendation derives from Hinnosaar et al. (2021), an RCT demonstrating that minor improvements to municipalities’ Wikipedia pages (adding photographs, local festival information, touristic landmark details) increased overnight tourist stays by 9%. This policy was chosen because it is ideologically neutral, low cost, within local policymakers’ remit, and its implementation is directly traceable via Wikipedia edit histories.

Antonio Roldán-Monés | Macro Paper Warehouse

Ideological Alignment and Evidence-Based Policy Adoption