We empirically investigate key dynamic features of advertising competition in elections using a new data set of very high-frequency, household-level television viewing matched to campaign advertising exposures. First, we show that exposure to campaign advertising increases households' consumption of news programming by 3 or 4 minutes on average over the next 24 hours. The identification compares households viewing a program when a political ad appeared to viewers in the same market who barely missed it. Second, we show that these effects decline over the campaign. Together, these dynamic forces help rationalize why candidates deploy much of their advertising budgets well before election day.

© 2021 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2021
The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Supplementary data

Supplemental Appendix
- pdf file
You do not currently have access to this content.