Do People Avoid Morally Relevant Information? Evidence from the Refugee Crisis

Combining click data from a Swedish newspaper and administrative data on
asylum seekers in Sweden, I examine whether a larger presence of refugees in a
municipality induces people to avoid news that may encourage welcoming the newcomers. Exploiting the unexpected inflow of refugees to Sweden during 2015 and their exogenous allocation across Swedish municipalities, I find that people living in municipalities where the relative number of refugees has been larger read fewer articles about asylum seekers. I then identify articles that may raise feelings of compassion towards the refugees. The decrease in information acquisition is 36 larger for such empathic articles.