Persuasion: A Case Study of Papal In‡uences on Fertility Preferences and Behavior

This paper studies the persuasive impacts of non-informative communication on the beliefs and behaviors of households. We do so in the context of the Papal visit to Brazil in October 1991, in which there were recurring fertility-related messages of persuasion in Papal speeches. We use Catholic household’s potential exposure to such messages to understand how persuasive messages shift their fertility beliefs, such as their intent to contracept, and their fertility outcomes, such as the timing and total number of births. To understand the short run impacts of persuasion on beliefs, we exploit the fact that the Brazil 1991 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) was ...elded in the weeks before, during and after the Papal visit. We use this fortuitous timing to document that persuasion signi...cantly reduced intentions to contracept by 40% relative to pre-visit levels among Catholics (with no impact among the non-religious). To measure the impact of persuasion on fertility outcomes, we use the Brazil DHS 1996 survey to conduct an event history analysis on births in a ...ve year window either side of the 1991 Papal visit. We estimate a hazard model of fertility and ...nd a signi...cant spike in births nine months post-visit, the magnitude of which corresponds to a 16% increase in the aggregate birth cohort. Finally, we use the Brazil DHS 1996 and 2006 surveys to document the long run impact of persuasion on total fertility outcomes. We interpret our ...ndings through a dynamic model of household behavior linking contraceptive use, sexual intercourse and the timing of births, modi...ed to make precise whether and how unanticipated exposure to persuasive messages impact fertility behaviors. JEL Codes: D83, J13, N36.