Join us at 2:30pm UK time, 9:30am Eastern United States Time, 3:30pm Central European Time, and 9:30pm in Perth, Australia, as we meet on Teams for the 139th Reading Online Sport Economics Seminar.<\/p>\n
Title<\/strong>: \u201cPeacefully Demobilizing Rebels: Identity, Emotional Cues, and the FARC\u201d<\/p>\n Abstract<\/strong>: In the early 2000s, the Colombian government aired messages during games of the national football team, urging FARC rebels to demobilize. We first study the strategy’s effectiveness, leveraging game dates, kick-off times, and spatial-temporal variation in rain-induced signal strength in a municipality-day-level panel spanning 2003-2016. Over 1,000 rebels demobilized because of family-themed (but not national-unity-themed) messages, received during unexpected losses (i.e., negative emotional cues). We then model a rebel’s demobilization decision, combining identity salience with their emotional state. Finally, we corroborate the model’s predictions examining family- versus non-family-specific holidays and local climatic anomalies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"