Replication Data for: When do politicians pursue more policy information?

When do politicians seek out expert information on policy? In this paper we explore whether elected officials seek out more information about an issue when they are farther offside the average opinion in their district on that issue. We designed and implemented a field experiment among Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs). In the midst of a contentious national debate on federal government support for the oil industry, we invited MPs and their staff to watch a webinar or read a written summary of the webinar. The webinar contained a variety of expert viewpoints on the future prospects of oil extraction in Canada. Some MPs were randomly assigned to information about the distribution of opinion in their constituency on the issue of whether the government should be involved in actively helping the resource sector, including in the construction of pipelines. We estimate the effect of receiving this district opinion on an MP seeking out expert knowledge in the form of the webinar. We particularly focus on the degree to which opinion disagrees with a politician’s party position. We find that politicians who are offside their constituency opinion do not appear more likely to seek out expert information on contentious policy issues.政客何时会寻求政策相关的专业信息？本文探讨了当民选官员在某一议题上与其所在选区的主流民意存在较大偏差时，是否会更多地寻求该议题的相关信息。我们在加拿大议员（Members of Parliament, MPs）群体中设计并实施了一项田野实验。在一场关于联邦政府支持石油产业的激烈全国性辩论期间，我们邀请议员及其幕僚观看一场网络研讨会（webinar），或阅读该研讨会的书面总结材料。本次网络研讨会涵盖了加拿大石油开采未来前景的多种专家观点。部分议员被随机分配获取其选区关于“政府是否应积极助力资源产业发展（包括管道建设）”这一议题的民意分布信息。我们评估了获取此类选区民意信息对议员通过网络研讨会寻求专业知识这一行为的影响。我们尤其关注民意与政客所属政党立场相悖的程度这一因素。研究结果显示，与所在选区民意存在偏差的政客，在有争议的政策议题上并未表现出更高的寻求专业信息的倾向。