Zucco, C., Lenz, A-K., Goldszmidt, R. & Valdivia, M. (2023). Do political preferences affect policy learning and uptake? Evidence from a field experiment with informal entrepreneurs. EGAP Brief 86.

This study examines whether political preferences shape citizens’ uptake of and learning about government programs, using Brazil’s Individual Microentrepreneur Program (MEI). MEI offers informal entrepreneurs subsidized access to social security and business-related incentives and was introduced under President Lula. The authors randomly assigned MEI-eligible informal entrepreneurs in Rio de Janeiro to a control group, a main treatment arm (one-on-one information and assistance), or an endorsement arm (the same assistance but explicitly linking the program to Lula). They find that the informational treatment increased formalization, that supporters of Lula/PT responded somewhat more strongly than detractors, but that explicitly stressing the program’s political origins did not widen this gap as predicted. Instead, exploratory analysis shows that political endorsement affected the two groups differently in how much they learned: detractors absorbed substantially more programmatic knowledge when the political connection was emphasized, while supporters did not, yet the two groups ultimately formalized at similar rates, implying that political cues substituted for information acquisition among supporters.

Original journal article

Zucco, C., Lenz, A-K., Goldszmidt, R. & Valdivia, M. (2023). Do political preferences affect policy learning and uptake? Evidence from a field experiment with informal entrepreneurs. The Journal of Politics, 85(3), 1003-1016.