2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 151-167
On specific policies, voters and political parties representing “left” and “right” in Japan are known to hold “twisted” policy preferences that conflict with left and right in western countries. Especially on monetary easing, in west, left tends to be more supportive of its expansion than right; In Japan, left is consistently opposing to this policy. Scholars provide various explanations for this pattern, but none has been assessed empirically. In the current study, we conduct a survey experiment with Japanese voters to explore the effect of information environment on the relationship between ideology and monetary easing preferences. The result shows that “left” voters support monetary easing the same or more than “right” voters if and only if both the “poverty reduction” framing and endorsement from western economic experts are provided. The finding implies that information environment plays a critical role in explaining “twisted” Japanese policy preferences.
