| Authors |
Chopra |
| Year |
2021 |
| Type |
Working Paper |
| Abstract |
Can entertaining mass media programs influence individual consumption and savings decisions? I study this question by examining the impact of the Dave Ramsey Show, an iconic US radio talk show which encourages people to spend less and save more. To that end, I combine household-level expenditure records from a large scanner panel with fine-grained information about the geographic coverage of the radio show over time. Exploiting the quasi-natural experiment created by the staggered expansion of the radio show from 2004 to 2019, I find that exposure to the radio show decreases monthly household expenditures. This effect is driven by households with initially high expenditures relative to their income. In a mechanism experiment, I document that listening to the radio show has a persistent effect on people's attitudes towards consumption and debt. This suggests that attitudinal changes are a key mechanism driving behavioral change. My findings highlight the potential of entertaining mass media programs for interventions aimed at changing people's financial decisions. |
| Keywords |
Consumption, debt, entertainment, edutainment, household finance, mass media, persuasion, radio, savings |
| URL |
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3992358 |
| Tags |
Archival Empirical |
Consumer Decisions |
Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical |
Financing- and Investment Decisions (Individual)
|