Book ban sentences to ponder

Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that the circulations of banned books increased by 12%, on average, compared with comparable nonbanned titles after the ban. We also find that banning a book in a state leads to increased circulation in states without bans. We show that the increase in consumption is driven by books from lesser-known authors, suggesting that new and unknown authors stand to gain from the increasing consumer support. Additionally, our results demonstrate that books with higher visibility on social media following the ban see an increase in consumption, suggesting a pivotal role played by social media. Using patron-level data from the Seattle Public Library that include the borrower’s age, we provide suggestive evidence that the increase in readership in the aggregate data is driven, in part, by children reading a book more once it is banned. Using data on campaign emails sent to potential donors subscribed to politicians’ mailing lists, we show a significant increase in mentions of book ban-related topics in fundraising emails sent by Republican candidates.

That is from a new paper by Uttara M. Ananthakrishnan, et.al., via Kris Gulati.