Politics of Food: An Experiment on Trust in Expert Regulation and Economic Costs of Political Polarisation

Abstract

Rising polarisation heightens concerns about politicising regulatory agencies, prompting reassessment of the accountability–independence trade-off. We study whether perceived out-group oversight affects trust in regulation and market behaviour. Using US television transcripts, we show that media link agencies with presidents. We then conduct a field experiment (N=5,566) using a case where the EPA endorsed antibiotic spraying on citrus crops during both Trump’s and Biden’s presidencies. Holding science constant, out-group oversight reduces support for spraying by 26%, lowers trust in EPA’s evaluation, and increases donations to an opposing NGO by 15%. In an obfuscated follow-up, citrus demand is unchanged, but effects differ by consumption habits.