IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jrp/jrpwrp/2021-004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Framing of Economic News and Policy Support During a Pandemic: Evidence from an Information Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Bareinz

    (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, School of Economics)

  • Fabian Koenings

    (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, School of Economics)

Abstract

We investigate the effect of how news outlets communicate macroeconomic information to consumers on support for governmental policy in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. In our survey experiment based on a representative sample of 3000 individuals in Germany, respondents are exposed to an expert forecast of GDP growth. Individuals are randomly assigned to either receive no information, the baseline forecast information, or real-world frames of the same information used in newspaper articles on the topic. We find that in contrast to the baseline information, positive framing of forecasted economic growth by news outlets increases support for pandemic policy. This effect is especially pronounced for respondents with more pessimistic macroeconomic expectations. Further evidence suggests that negative economic news are perceived as more credible and hence less surprising in times of recession, not translating into a change in political opinion.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Bareinz & Fabian Koenings, 2021. "Framing of Economic News and Policy Support During a Pandemic: Evidence from an Information Experiment," Jena Economics Research Papers 2021-004, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2021-004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2021/wp_2021_004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Armantier & Scott Nelson & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2016. "The Price Is Right: Updating Inflation Expectations in a Randomized Price Information Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 503-523, July.
    2. Carola Binder, 2020. "Coronavirus Fears and Macroeconomic Expectations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 721-730, October.
    3. Grewenig, Elisabeth & Lergetporer, Philipp & Werner, Katharina & Woessmann, Ludger, 2022. "Incentives, search engines, and the elicitation of subjective beliefs: Evidence from representative online survey experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 304-326.
    4. Bleemer, Zachary & Zafar, Basit, 2018. "Intended college attendance: Evidence from an experiment on college returns and costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 184-211.
    5. Luis Armona & Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Home Price Expectations and Behaviour: Evidence from a Randomized Information Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1371-1410.
    6. Zachary Bleemer & Basit Zafar, 2014. "Information heterogeneity and intended college enrollment," Staff Reports 685, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. Carola Binder & Alex Rodrigue, 2018. "Household Informedness and Long‐Run Inflation Expectations: Experimental Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(2), pages 580-598, October.
    8. Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "How Do Expectations about the Macroeconomy Affect Personal Expectations and Behavior?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 731-748, October.
    9. Faia, Ester & Fuster, Andreas & Pezone, Vincenzo & Zafar, Basit, 2021. "Biases in information selection and processing: Survey evidence from the pandemic," SAFE Working Paper Series 307, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    10. Alan S. Gerber & Dean Karlan & Daniel Bergan, 2009. "Does the Media Matter? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effect of Newspapers on Voting Behavior and Political Opinions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 35-52, April.
    11. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2017. "Inflation Expectations, Learning, and Supermarket Prices: Evidence from Survey Experiments," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, July.
    12. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    13. Felix Chopra & Ingar K. Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2019. "Do People Value More Informative News?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8026, CESifo.
    14. Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, 2007. "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1187-1234.
    15. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2022. "Monetary Policy Communications and Their Effects on Household Inflation Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1537-1584.
    16. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2010. "What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 35-71, January.
    17. Jonathan de Quidt & Johannes Haushofer & Christopher Roth, 2018. "Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3266-3302, November.
    18. Daniel Zizzo, 2010. "Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(1), pages 75-98, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dylong, Patrick & Koenings, Fabian, 2023. "Framing of economic news and policy support during a pandemic: Evidence from a survey experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    3. Weber, Michael & D'Acunto, Francesco & Fuster, Andreas, 2021. "Diverse Policy Committees Can Reach Underrepresented Groups," CEPR Discussion Papers 16563, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Grewenig, Elisabeth & Lergetporer, Philipp & Werner, Katharina & Woessmann, Ludger, 2022. "Incentives, search engines, and the elicitation of subjective beliefs: Evidence from representative online survey experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 304-326.
    5. Blesse, Sebastian & Heinemann, Friedrich & Krieger, Tommy, 2021. "Informationsdefizite als Hindernis rationaler Wirtschaftspolitik: Ausmass, Ursachen und Gegenstrategien. Eine Studie mit Unterstützung der Brigitte Strube Stiftung," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 241989.
    6. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples [Rationally Confused: On the Aggregate Implications of Information Provision Policies]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    7. Lergetporer, Philipp & Woessmann, Ludger, 2023. "Earnings information and public preferences for university tuition: Evidence from representative experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    8. Christopher Roth & Sonja Settele & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 34-53, March.
    9. Weber, Michael & Candia, Bernardo & Ropele, Tiziano & Lluberas, Rodrigo & Frache, Serafin & Meyer, Brent & Kumar, Saten & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Coibion, Olivier & Kenny, Geoff, 2023. "Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know: Learning in Low and High-Inflation Settings," IZA Discussion Papers 16305, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    11. Roth, Christopher & Settele, Sonja & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2022. "Beliefs about public debt and the demand for government spending," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 165-187.
    12. Peter Andre & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Narratives about the Macroeconomy," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 127, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    13. Bernard, René & Tzamourani, Panagiota & Weber, Michael, 2022. "Climate change and individual behavior," Discussion Papers 01/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    14. Heiner Mikosch & Christopher Roth & Samad Sarferaz & Johannes Wohlfart, 2024. "Uncertainty and Information Acquisition: Evidence from Firms and Households," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 375-405, April.
    15. Beutel, Johannes & Metiu, Norbert & Stockerl, Valentin, 2021. "Toothless tiger with claws? Financial stability communication, expectations, and risk-taking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 53-69.
    16. Rüdiger Weber & Annika Weber & Christine Laudenbach & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Beliefs About the Stock Market and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CEBI working paper series 21-17, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    17. Sören Harrs & Lara Marie Müller & Bettina Rockenbach, 2021. "How Optimistic and Pessimistic Narratives about COVID-19 Impact Economic Behavior," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 091, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    18. Christine Laudenbach & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Beliefs About the Stock Market and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Field Experiment," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 128, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    19. Schnorpfeil, Philip & Weber, Michael & Hackethal, Andreas, 2023. "Households' response to the wealth effects of inflation," SAFE Working Paper Series 400, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    20. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    expectation formation; information experiment; media framing; macroeconomic information; policy support; COVID-19 crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2021-004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Markus Pasche (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jenecon.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.