We review conceptual and empirical contributions to the political economy of attention, with a focus on how attention allocation shapes political behavior and electoral accountability. The review distinguishes between endogenous (goal-directed) and exogenous (stimulus-driven) attention and examines how these concepts are incorporated into political economy models. We then discuss empirical research on how attention shifts – driven by media coverage, transparency reforms, and persuasive content – affect voting behavior and accountability outcomes. We also consider how digital technologies, such as algorithmic content curation and individual-level targeting, transform the political information environment and create new dynamics of attention allocation. The review concludes by outlining methodological approaches for identifying causal effects of attention and by highlighting key directions for future research in this growing field.
@article{BallesMatterStutzer2025_JoES,author={Balles, Patrick and Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={The Political Economy of Attention: Media Salience, Voter Cognition, and Electoral Accountability},journal={Journal of Economic Surveys},year={2026},month=jul,volume={40},number={3},pages={1173-1193},doi={10.1111/joes.70051},url={https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/joes.70051},keywords={accountability, attention, media, representative democracy, re-election},}
Authoritarian regimes shape citizens’ knowledge and beliefs through censorship and propaganda. We study which narratives they suppress and promote using a rare natural experiment: Ruwiki, created in 2023 by cloning Russian-language Wikipedia and selectively rewriting its 1.9 million articles under regime-aligned editorial control. We compare the two platforms twenty months after the fork, using within-Wikipedia changes as a placebo benchmark. We find that Ruwiki’s editing patterns resemble professional rather than volunteer-driven content production. An LLM-based comparison and machine-learning analyses of text deletions and insertions reveal a coherent ideology organized around three pillars: Russia’s image vis-à-vis the rest of the world, domestic politics, and culture. The resulting narratives legitimize Russia’s past and present acts of aggression, suppress accounts of domestic opposition and human-rights violations, and promote traditional values. Culture’s centrality reveals how authoritarian information control penetrates domains far beyond formal politics, including morality, gender, family life, law, and psychology. Article deletions are rare and confined to topics that are difficult to reframe, while editing is broad, consistent with a preference for reframing existing content rather than leaving unanswered queries: 27% of articles undergo at least some change, 2.8% are heavily edited, and only 0.14% are deleted. Rewriting sensitive topics reduces readability, suggesting that ideological control is costly. An external benchmark using official high-school history textbooks confirms that Ruwiki’s revisions move articles on modern history toward state-sanctioned narratives. The results show how authoritarian information control constructs a regime-aligned account of the world and Russia’s place in it.
@techreport{zhuravskaya_matter_durante_avetian2026,author={Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina and Matter, Ulrich and Durante, Ruben and Avetian, Vladimir},year={2026},month=jul,title={The Anatomy of Censorship and Propaganda: Evidence from Russian Wikipedias},institution={Centre for Economic Policy Research},type={CEPR Discussion Paper},number={DP21698},}
The ability of private interests to influence the political process is an important topic in economics and political science. While some of these efforts appear as campaign finance and lobbying expenditures in the official record, private interests may also engage in “covert” influence through media capture. In this paper, we systematically examine whether and to what extent corporations in the United States with an interest in slowing climate action, such as Big Oil companies, might have used corporate advertisement in media outlets as a strategic tool to align such outlets’ coverage with their views. We find that advertising spending by such actors (i) increases during election periods and (ii) implies both lower and more skeptical-leaning coverage of climate change and climate policy.
@techreport{carattini_matter_roesti2026,author={Carattini, Stefano and Matter, Ulrich and Roesti, Matthias},year={2026},month=may,title={Lobbying in Disguise},institution={Centre for Economic Policy Research},type={CEPR Discussion Paper},number={DP21489},}
@techreport{matter_widmer2021,author={Matter, Ulrich and Widmer, Philine},year={2026},title={Who Owns the Online Media?},institution={University of St.Gallen},note={Available at SSRN},}
2025
Web Search Personalization during the US 2020 Election
We study the impact of web search personalization on ideological segregation in search results. We deploy 150 synthetic internet users with randomized partisan browsing preferences across 25 US cities. These users are active during the US 2020 election and its aftermath. Daily experiments in which the users enter identical election-related queries provide strong evidence for ideological segregation in search results across locations with different partisan leanings but only limited evidence for ideological segregation within location across users with different partisan browsing habits. We discuss the important role of the national and local (online) media landscape for understanding these results.
@article{MatterHodler2025b,author={Matter, Ulrich and Hodler, Roland},title={Web Search Personalization during the US 2020 Election},journal={American Economic Review: Insights},year={2025},volume={7},number={4},pages={516--533},doi={10.1257/aeri.20240115},url={https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20240115},}
@incollection{BallesMatterStutzer2025,author={Balles, Patrick and Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={Political Economy of Attention},booktitle={Elgar Encyclopedia of Public Choice},editor={Jong-A-Pin, Richard and Bj{\o}rnskov, Christian},publisher={Edward Elgar},address={Cheltenham, UK},year={2025},pages={599--606},chapter={82},isbn={9781802207750},}
An Introduction to Web Mining: with Applications in R
@book{matter2025a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={An Introduction to Web Mining: with Applications in R},year={2025},series={Use R!},publisher={Springer Nature},address={Cham, Switzerland},doi={10.1007/978-3-031-96638-5},isbn={978-3-031-96637-8},url={https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-96638-5},}
2024
Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention
We investigate whether US House representatives favour special interest groups over constituents in periods of low media attention to politics. Analysing 666 roll calls from 2005 to 2018, we show that representatives are more likely to vote against their constituency’s preferred position the more special interest money they receive from groups favouring the opposite position. The latter effect is significantly larger when less attention is paid to politics due to distraction by exogenous newsworthy events like natural disasters. The effect is mostly driven by short-term opportunistic behaviour than the short-term scheduling of controversial votes in periods with high news pressure.
@article{balles_etal2024,author={Balles, Patrick and Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={{Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention}},journal={The Economic Journal},volume={134},number={662},pages={2290-2320},year={2024},month=may,issn={0013-0133},doi={10.1093/ej/ueae020},}
2023
Big Data Analytics: A Guide to Data Science Practitioners Making the Transition to Big Data
@book{matter2023a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Big Data Analytics: A Guide to Data Science Practitioners Making the Transition to Big Data},year={2023},series={Data Science Series},publisher={Chapman \& Hall, CRC Press},address={Boca Raton, FL},}
Are Our Jobs at Risk? Estimating the Effect of Artificial Intelligence on the Swiss Labor Market
Timon Jaeggi, Benjamin Schaefer, Christian Dietzmann, and 2 more authors
While recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are already contributing value to the economy and society, fears of massive job losses are increasingly coming to the forefront of political debate. Against this backdrop, this paper sheds light on the relationship between AI technology and potential workforce vulnerability. We developed a novel measure to quantify the potential exposure of occupations, considering unaffectedness, substitution, and complementarity effects, incorporating a task-technology fit perspective. We contrasted the measure with data on employment, education, and wages in Switzerland to examine the impact of AI at the aggregate level. The results indicate that about 10 percent of the Swiss workforce is strongly affected by AI substitution due to their specific task content. In contrast, AI can complement 61 percent of the Swiss workforce in about half of their current tasks, eventually increasing individual performance. Occupations in the finance and insurance and professional, scientific, and technical services sectors can benefit most from the complementary effects of AI. In contrast, occupations in the accommodation and food services sector are most affected by AI substitution. In addition, we found substitution to be most prevalent in low-skilled occupations, requiring lower levels of education and inhibiting lower wage levels.
@article{doi:10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract,author={Jaeggi, Timon and Schaefer, Benjamin and Dietzmann, Christian and Jung, Reinhard and Matter, Ulrich},title={Are Our Jobs at Risk? Estimating the Effect of Artificial Intelligence on the Swiss Labor Market},journal={Academy of Management Proceedings},volume={2023},number={1},pages={11166},year={2023},doi={10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract},url={
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract
},eprint={
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11166abstract
}}
Television Market Size and Political Accountability in the U.S. House of Representatives
This paper examines the role of local TV market structure in U.S. congressional politics, exploiting variation in the overlaps of political markets and TV markets. Local TV stations are hypothesized to report relatively more per U.S. House representative in less populous markets (where the number of House districts covered is smaller), leading to better-informed voters and more accountable representatives. We find that smaller markets are indeed associated with (i) higher coverage of representatives and (ii) a higher level of voters’ knowledge about their representatives. However, (iii) representatives of smaller and more congruent markets are only more likely to decide aligned with their constituents’ policy preferences in highly competitive districts. This evidence suggests that local political news coverage on TV serves as a complement rather than a substitute in holding members of the U.S. Congress accountable.
@article{BALLES2023102459,title={Television Market Size and Political Accountability in the U.S. House of Representatives},journal={European Journal of Political Economy},volume={80},pages={102459},year={2023},issn={0176-2680},doi={https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102459},url={https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268023001039},author={Balles, Patrick and Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},keywords={Political accountability, Market congruence, Media coverage, TV markets, Legislative voting, U.S. Congress, Voter knowledge, Campaign finance}}
2021
Data Pipelines in Big Data Analytics
Ulrich Matter
In Big Data Analytics – Grundlagen, Fallbeispiele und Nutzungspotenziale, 2021
@incollection{matter2021,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Data Pipelines in Big Data Analytics},editor={D'Onofrio, S. and Meier, A.},booktitle={Big Data Analytics -- Grundlagen, Fallbeispiele und Nutzungspotenziale},publisher={Springer},year={2021},}
@techreport{guerrero_matter2021,author={Guerrero, Omar and Matter, Ulrich},year={2021},title={Quantifying Vote Trading Through Network Reciprocity},institution={School of Economics and Political Science, University of St.Gallen},type={SEPS-HSG Discussion Paper},number={2021-06},status={Acc. Netw. Sci.}}
@book{matter2020a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Big Public Data from the Programmable Web},year={2020},series={Springer Essentials},publisher={Springer Vieweg},address={Wiesbaden},}
2019
Does Public Attention Reduce the Influence of Moneyed Interests? Policy Positions on SOPA/PIPA Before and After the Internet Blackout
@article{matter_stutzer2019,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={Does Public Attention Reduce the Influence of Moneyed Interests? Policy Positions on SOPA/PIPA Before and After the Internet Blackout},doi={https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12812},journal={Economic Inquiry},volume={57},number={4},pages={1879-1895},year={2019},}
Metrics of Inequality: The Concentration of Resources in the U.S. Biomedical Elite
@article{katz_matter2019,author={Katz, Yarden and Matter, Ulrich},title={Metrics of Inequality: The Concentration of Resources in the U.S. Biomedical Elite},journal={Science as Culture},pages={1-28},year={2019},publisher={Routledge},doi={10.1080/09505431.2019.1694882},}
Ulrich Matter Recommends ’Towards a Political Theory of the Firm’ by Luigi Zingales
Ulrich Matter
In 21st Century Economics – Economic Ideas You Should Read and Remember, 2019
@incollection{matter2019b,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Ulrich Matter Recommends 'Towards a Political Theory of the Firm' by Luigi Zingales},editor={Frey, Bruno S. and Schaltegger, Christoph A.},booktitle={21st Century Economics -- Economic Ideas You Should Read and Remember},publisher={Springer},address={Cham},year={2019},}
Big Public Data from the Programmable Web: Opportunities and Challenges
Ulrich Matter
HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik (Special Issue on Big Data Analytics), 2019
@article{matter2019a,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={Big Public Data from the Programmable Web: Opportunities and Challenges},journal={HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik (Special Issue on Big Data Analytics)},year={2019},pages={1068–1081},volume={56},number={5},doi={http://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-019-00525-6},}
@techreport{matter_etal2019,author={Matter, Ulrich and Roberti, Paolo and Slotwinski, Michaela},year={2019},title={Vote Buying in the US Congress},institution={CESifo, Munich},type={CESifo Working Paper},number={7841},}
2018
RWebData: A High-Level Interface to the Programmable Web
@article{matter_2018,author={Matter, Ulrich},title={RWebData: A High-Level Interface to the Programmable Web},journal={Journal of Open Research Software},volume={6},number={1},pages={1-12},year={2018},doi={http://doi.org/10.5334/jors.201},}
2016
The Role of Party Politics in Medical Malpractice Tort Reforms
@article{matter_stutzer2016,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={The Role of Party Politics in Medical Malpractice Tort Reforms},journal={European Journal of Political Economy},volume={42},number={},pages={17-35},year={2016},note={},issn={0176-2680},doi={http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.01.001},}
2015
pvsR: An Open Source Interface to Big Data on the American Political Sphere
@article{matter_stutzer2015b,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},journal={PLOS ONE},publisher={Public Library of Science},title={pvsR: An Open Source Interface to Big Data on the American Political Sphere},year={2015},month=jul,volume={10},url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0130501},pages={1-21},number={7},doi={10.1371/journal.pone.0130501},}
The Role of Lawyer-Legislators in Shaping the Law: Evidence from Voting on Tort Reforms
@article{matter_stutzer2015a,author={Matter, Ulrich and Stutzer, Alois},title={The Role of Lawyer-Legislators in Shaping the Law: Evidence from Voting on Tort Reforms},journal={Journal of Law and Economics},volume={58},number={2},pages={357-384},year={2015},doi={10.1086/684039},}
Data Pipelines in Big Data AnalyticsIn Big Data Analytics – Grundlagen, Fallbeispiele und Nutzungspotenziale, 2021
Ulrich Matter Recommends ’Towards a Political Theory of the Firm’ by Luigi ZingalesIn 21st Century Economics – Economic Ideas You Should Read and Remember, 2019
