Matthew Gentzkow is a professor at University of Chicago. At the Federal Trade Commission’s “News Media Workshop” held on December 1 and 2, he gave an extended presentation entitled, “The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics.”

He presented new data on entries and exits of U.S. daily newspapers from 1869 to 2004 to estimate the effects on political participation, party vote shares and electoral competitiveness. His research found that “newspapers have a robust positive effect on political participation, with one additional newspaper increasing both presidential and congressional turnout by approximately 0.3 percentage points.”

Read his full paper.