We study a far-reaching episode of demagoguery in American history. From the late 1940s to 1950s, anti-communist hysteria led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others gripped the nation. Hundreds of professionals in Hollywood were accused of having ties with the communist. We show that these accusations were not random, targeting those with dissenting views. Actors and screenwriters who were accused suffered a setback in their careers. Beyond the accused, we find that the anti-communist crusade also had a chilling effect on film content, as non-accused filmmakers avoided progressive topics. The decline in progressive films, in turn, made society more conservative.
Authors
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- We are grateful to Desmond Ang, Leah Boustan, Ruben Durante, Shari Eli, James Feigenbaum, Ricard Gill, Pauline Grosjean, Stephan Heblich, Saumitra Jha, Ilyana Kuziemko, Caroline Le Pennec, Kevin Lim, Petra Moser, Suresh Naidu, Nathan Nunn, Sahar Parsa, Daniel I. Rees, Aloysius Siow as well as seminar participants at Princeton University, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, Peking University, Lund University, Universidad de Chile, the ASREC Conference, the CNEH Conference, the NBER DAE Spring Meeting, the Mountain West Economic History Conference, and the Southern Economic Association Conference for helpful comments and suggestions. Nishtha Kawatra, Yaqi Liu, Ganesh Manyam, Martin McFarlane, Armaan Nanji, Yibei Wu, and Suning Zhang provided excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3386/w32682
- Pages
- 50
- Published in
- United States of America
Table of Contents
- NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES 1
- MCCARTHYISM MEDIA AND POLITICAL REPRESSION EVIDENCE FROM HOLLYWOOD 1
- Working Paper 32682 httpwww.nber.orgpapersw32682 1
- NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MA 02138 July 2024 1
- McCarthyism Media and Political Repression Evidence from Hollywood Hui Ren Tan and Tianyi Wang NBER Working Paper No. 32682 July 2024 JEL No. L82N32N42 2
- Hui Ren Tan National University of Singapore huirennus.edu.sg 2
- Tianyi Wang University of Toronto Department of Economics Toronto Ontario M5S 3G7 Canada and NBER tianyiwang.wangutoronto.ca 2
- A data appendix is available at httpwww.nber.orgdata-appendixw32682 2
- 1 Introduction 3
- 2 Historical Background 7
- 2.1 Key Players 7
- 2.2 Hollywood on Trial 8
- 2.3 Light After Darkness 9
- 3 Who were the Accused 10
- 3.1 Names of the Accused 10
- 3.2 The Determinants of Being Accused 11
- Accused γ X v 13
- 4 The Impact of Being Accused 14
- 4.1 Actors 14
- Accused 15
- I θ 15
- 4.2 Writers 21
- 4.3 Directors 22
- 5 Mechanisms 23
- 5.1 Customer Discrimination 23
- Associated I 24
- 5.2 Employer Discrimination 25
- 5.3 Other Mechanisms 26
- 6 Beyond the Accused 27
- 6.1 Non-Accused in the Entertainment Industry 27
- P C 29
- NetProgressiveness 30
- NetProgressiveness 30
- Treated I θ 30
- 6.2 Rest of Society 31
- V ote 31
- X I θ δ ϵ 31
- V ote 31
- MovieExp I X 32
- 7 Conclusion 33
- References 35
- Figures and Tables 42
