The micro-geography of persuasion: randomised peer exposure and legislative outcomes over 230 years

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Speaker: Dr Bo Li, Peking University

About the seminar topic

Using over 230 years of congressional voting and exogenous variation in legislators’ seating locations, we show that physical distance has remained a robust and persistent persuasion channel. This finding holds true irrespective of the political polarisation environment, party, legislative agenda and constituent interests. Namely, we exploit exogenous placement of senators across distinct historical settings, including geography-based seating in early Congresses and seniority-based seating since 1840, to identify this channel.

Based on each individual senator’s prior preferences, we calculate the extent of persuasion by examining how the senator’s subsequent position shifts from those preferences toward the positions of nearby peers. The effect is strongest for closest-seated peers, decays with physical distance and time, and varies across policy topics. When nearby peers are absent, the effect is attenuated. We also find suggestive evidence that freshman senators exogenously seated closer to the opposing party cross party lines more often in their voting behaviour. We micro-found this mechanism with complementary evidence using C-SPAN video evidence from Senate-floor face-to-face interactions prior to votes. Finally, counterfactual seat assignments demonstrate how this persuasion channel can change which consequential bills pass or fail, illustrating how the micro-geography of seating matters for legislation.

Speaker bio

Bo Li joined Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, as an Associate Professor of Finance. Before joining Peking University, she served as Assistant and Associate Professor at Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance (2013-2023). She is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, such as the 2023 Masahiko Aoki Award, a biennial prize given to the best paper in economics and finance.

Bo Li conducts interdisciplinary research with primary research focusing on the intersection between finance, political economy and economic history. Specific interests include technological adoption and industrial development across history, with a special interest in the role of the government in industrial policies. Her recent research agenda covers a range of topics including corruption, bankruptcy law, industrial policies and venture capital markets in emerging economies such as China. Her research has been published in various top academic journals, such as the Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, Management Science, Review of Finance and the Journal of Law, Finance, and Accounting. She developed numerous cases for MBA and EMBA classes (including Harvard Business School Cases) and focused on law and finance in emerging markets.

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