Media censorship is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. We conduct a field experiment in China to measure the effects of providing citizens with access to an uncensored Internet. We track subjects' media consumption, beliefs regarding the media, economic beliefs, political attitudes, and behaviors over 18 months. We find 4 main results: (i) free access alone does not induce subjects to acquire politically sensitive information; (ii) temporary encouragement leads to a persistent increase in acquisition, indicating that demand is not permanently low; (iii) acquisition brings broad, substantial, and persistent changes to knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intended behaviors; and (iv) social transmission of information is statistically significant but small in magnitude. We calibrate a simple model to show that the combination of low demand for uncensored information and the moderate social transmission means China's censorship apparatus may remain robust to a large number of citizens receiving access to an uncensored Internet.

Social scientists have long viewed the decision to protest as strategic, with an individual's participation a function of her beliefs about others' turnout. We conduct a field experiment that re-calibrates individuals' beliefs about others' protest participation, in the context of Hong Kong's ongoing anti-authoritarian movement. We elicit subjects' planned participation in an upcoming protest and their prior beliefs about others' participation, in an incentivized manner. One day before the protest, we randomly provide a subset of subjects with truthful information about others' protest plans, and elicit posterior beliefs about protest turnout, again in an incentivized manner. After the protest, we elicit subjects' actual participation. This allows us to identify the causal effects of positively and negatively updated beliefs about others' protest participation on subjects' own turnout. In contrast with the assumptions of many recent models of protest participation, we consistently find evidence of strategic substitutability. We provide guidance regarding plausible sources of strategic substitutability that can be incorporated into theoretical models of protests.

We study the causal effect of school curricula on students' political attitudes, exploiting a major textbook reform in China between 2004 and 2010. The sharp, staggered introduction of the new curriculum across provinces allows us to identify its causal effects. We examine government documents articulating desired consequences of the reform, and identify changes in textbooks reflecting these aims. A survey we conducted reveals that the reform was often successful in shaping attitudes, while evidence on behavior is mixed. Studying the new curriculum led to more positive views of China's governance, changed views on democracy, and increased skepticism toward free markets.

Can political distrust arise in authoritarian regimes where propaganda and information control explicitly aim to maintain high trust? When do citizens hold the state responsible for man-made disasters? We study the causal effect of the Great Chinese Famine (1958-1961) on survivors’ political distrust. Drought condition during the Famine was unrelated to the Famine intensity due to the food procurement system, but it was crucial to survivors’ political inference. Using a nationally representative survey, we employ a difference-in-differences framework to compare individuals who were exposed to different intensities of the Famine across regions with different levels of drought during the Famine. The Famine survivors inferred the government’s liability from starvation experiences and the drought condition, and they were more likely to blame the government for the Famine if they observe regular weather conditions during the Famine. As a result, these individuals exhibit significantly less trust in the local government. The dampened political trust has turned into a stable political ideology: the distrust persists even half a century after the Famine, has been transmitted to the subsequent generation, and has spilled over to a broad range of political attitudes beyond the Famine itself.

We test whether participation in one protest within a political movement increases subsequent protest attendance, and why. To identify an effect of protest participation, we randomly, indirectly incentivize Hong Kong university students into participation in an antiauthoritarian protest. To identify the effects of social interactions, we randomize the intensity of this treatment across major-cohort cells. We find that experimentally-induced protest participation is significantly associated with protest attendance one year later, though political beliefs and preferences are unaffected. Persistent political engagement is greatest among individuals in the cells with highest treatment intensity, suggesting that social interactions sustained persistent political engagement.

Which fundamental factors are associated with individuals holding democratic, anti-authoritarian ideologies? We conduct a survey eliciting Hong Kong university students' political attitudes and behavior in an ongoing pro-democracy movement. We construct indices measuring students' anti-authoritarianism, and link these to a comprehensive profile of fundamental economic preferences; personalities; cognitive abilities; and family backgrounds. We find that fundamental economic preferences, particularly risk tolerance and pro-social preferences, are the strongest predictors of anti-authoritarian ideology and behavior. We also study simultaneously determined outcomes, arguably both cause and consequence of ideology. Examining these, we find that anti-authoritarians are more pessimistic about Hong Kong's political outlook and about their fellow students' support for the movement; their social networks are more political; they consume different media; and, they are more politically informed than other students. Our extraordinarily rich data suggest that individuals' deep preferences should be considered alongside payoffs and beliefs in explaining political behavior.

Beliefs about whether effort pays off govern some of the most fundamental choices individual make. This paper uses China’s Cultural Revolution to understand how these beliefs can be affected, how they impact behavior, and how they are transmitted across generations. During the Cultural Revolution, China’s college admission system based on entrance exams was suspended for a decade until 1976, effectively depriving an entire generation of young people of the opportunity to access higher education (the “lost generation”). Using data from a nationally representative survey, we compare cohorts who graduated from high school just before and after the college entrance exam was resumed. We find that members of the “lost generation” who missed out on college because they were born just a year or two too early believe that effort pays off to a much lesser degree, even 40 years into their adulthood. However, they invested more in their children’s education, and transmitted less of their changed beliefs to the next generation, suggesting attempts to safeguard their children from sharing their misfortunes.

Citizens' preference for redistribution determines many key political economy outcomes. In this project, we aim to understand how do ancestors' redistributive experiences affect the descendants' preference for redistribution. We conduct a survey experiment under the historical backdrop of the wealth equalization movements during the Communist Revolution in China (1947-1956). We remind a random subset of respondents of these movements that their ancestors went through. We find that on average, making the historical experiences salient turns the respondents significantly and persistently more favorable towards government redistribution. We show that the treatment effect is not driven by changes in apolitical preferences, beliefs of current inequality, or knowledge of the movements. Salience in history influences the mental framework when respondents think of redistribution: respondents are reminded of the specific family experiences during past redistribution, and they are triggered to project similar redistribution in the future.