Replication Data for: "How do Public Officials Learn About Policy? A Field Experiment on Policy Diffusion"

Prior research suggests that partisanship can influence how legislators learn from each other. However, same-party governments are also more likely to share similar issues, ideological preferences, or constituency demands. Establishing a causal link between partisanship and policy learning is difficult. In collaboration with a non-profit organization, this study isolates the role of partisanship in a real policy learning context. As part of an email campaign promoting a new policy among local representatives, I randomized whether the program was endorsed by co-partisans, out-partisans, or both parties. The results show that representatives are systematically more interested in the same policy when endorsed by co-partisans. Bipartisan initiatives also attract less interest than co-partisan policies, and no more interest than out-partisan policies, even in more competitive districts. Together, the results suggest that ideological considerations cannot fully explain partisan-based learning. Implications for the study of policy diffusion, legislative signaling, and interest group access are discussed.