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Many social movements face fierce resistance in the form of a countermovement. When deciding to become politically active, a movement supporter, therefore, has to consider both her own movement's activity, but also that of the opponent. This paper studies the decision of a movement supporter to attend a protest when faced with a counterprotest. We implement two field experiments among supporters of a right- and left-leaning movement ahead of two protest-counterprotest interactions in Germany. Supporters were exposed to low or high official estimates about their own and the opposing group's turnout. We find that the size of the opposing group has no effect on supporters' protest intentions. However, as the own protest gets larger, supporters of the right-leaning movement become less, while supporters of the left-leaning movement become more willing to protest. We argue that the difference is best explained by stronger social motives on the political left.

We review the emerging literature on information acquisition in field settings. We first document an increase in studies on information acquisition and review relevant studies in different subfields of economics, including macroeconomics, political economy, labor economics, health economics, and finance. We next provide an overview of empirical techniques to measure information acquisition and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different methods. We then discuss how one can design studies to test the predictions of different theories of information acquisition. We conclude by highlighting possible directions for future research.

We review the emerging literature on information acquisition in field settings. We first document an increase in studies on information acquisition and review relevant studies in different subfields of economics, including macroeconomics, political economy, labor economics, health economics, and finance. We next provide an overview of empirical techniques to measure information acquisition and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different methods. We then discuss how one can design studies to test the predictions of different theories of information acquisition. We conclude by highlighting possible directions for future research.

We provide evidence on the stories that people tell to explain a historically notable rise in inflation using samples of experts, U.S. households, and managers. We document substantial heterogeneity in narratives about the drivers of higher inflation rates. Experts put more emphasis on demand-side factors, such as fiscal and monetary policy, and on supply chain disruptions. Other supply-side factors, such as labor shortages or increased energy costs, are equally prominent across samples. Households and managers are more likely to tell generic stories related to the pandemic or mismanagement by the government. We also find that households and managers expect the increase in inflation to be more persistent than experts. Moreover, narratives about the drivers of the inflation increase are strongly correlated with beliefs about its persistence. Our findings have implications for understanding macroeconomic expectation formation.

Does party competition affect political activism? This paper studies the decision of party supporters to join political campaigns. We present a framework that incorporates supporters' instrumental and expressive motives and illustrates that party competition can either increase or decrease party activism. To distinguish between these competing predictions, we implemented a field experiment with a European party during a national election. In a seemingly unrelated party survey, we randomly assigned 1,417 party supporters to true information that the canvassing activity of the main competitor party was exceptionally high. Using unobtrusive, real-time data on party supporters' canvassing behavior, we find that respondents exposed to the high-competition treatment are 30% less likely to go canvassing. To investigate the causal mechanism, we leverage additional survey evidence collected two months after the campaign. Consistent with affective accounts of political activism, we show that increased competition lowered party supporters' political self-efficacy, which plausibly led them to remain inactive.

We provide evidence on the stories that people tell to explain a historically notable rise in inflation using samples of experts, U.S. households, and managers. We document substantial heterogeneity in narratives about the drivers of higher inflation rates. Experts put more emphasis on demand-side factors, such as fiscal and monetary policy, and on supply chain disruptions. Other supply-side factors, such as labor shortages or increased energy costs, are equally prominent across samples. Households and managers are more likely to tell generic stories related to the pandemic or mismanagement by the government. We also find that households and managers expect the increase in inflation to be more persistent than experts. Moreover, narratives about the drivers of the inflation increase are strongly correlated with beliefs about its persistence. Our findings have implications for understanding macroeconomic expectation formation.

We conduct a natural field experiment with a major European party to test whether giving party supporters the opportunity to voice their opinions increases their engagement in the party's electoral campaign. In our experiment, the party asked a random subset of supporters for their opinions on the importance of different topics. Giving supporters more opportunities to voice their opinions increases their engagement in the campaign as measured using behavioral data from the party's smartphone application. Survey data reveals that our voice treatments also increase other margins of campaign effort as well as perceived voice. Our evidence highlights that parties can increase their supporters' investment in the democratic process by implementing policies that increase their voice.