Hollywood evidence on McCarthyism

 [[{“value”:”There is a new NBER working paper on this topic by Hui Ren Tan and Tianyi Wang, here is the abstract: We study a far-reaching episode of demagoguery in American history. From the late 1940s to 1950s, anti-communist hysteria led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others gripped the nation. Hundreds of professionals in Hollywood were
The post Hollywood evidence on McCarthyism appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

There is a new NBER working paper on this topic by Hui Ren Tan and Tianyi Wang, here is the abstract:

We study a far-reaching episode of demagoguery in American history. From the late 1940s to 1950s, anti-communist hysteria led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others gripped the nation. Hundreds of professionals in Hollywood were accused of having ties with the communist. We show that these accusations were not random, targeting those with dissenting views. Actors and screenwriters who were accused suffered a setback in their careers. Beyond the accused, we find that the anti-communist crusade also had a chilling effect on film content, as non-accused filmmakers avoided progressive topics. The decline in progressive films, in turn, made society more conservative.

Here is extensive (positive) commentary by Alice Evans:

Dissidents who had organised against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) were 27 to 32 percentage points more likely to be accused.
Celebrities – actors with more experience and Academy Award nominations were more likely to be accused.
Actors and writers involved in progressive films were more likely to be accused.

Quicker and easier to read than the paper.  I also would like to see numbers on how many exactly were in fact communists.

The post Hollywood evidence on McCarthyism appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

 Data Source, Film, History, Uncategorized