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Sectoral Media Focus and Aggregate Fluctuations

Author

Listed:
  • Ryan Chahrour

    (Boston College)

  • Kristoffer Nimark

    (Cornell University)

Abstract

In this paper, we formalize the monitoring and editorial functions of news media within a multi-sector macroeconomic model. Each sector is subject to sector-specific productivity shocks, which are perfectly observed by firms in that sector. In addition to their local information, firms also learn from the news media about the developments in those sectors that the media choose to cover. Which sectors news media report about is a deterministic function of the cross-section of sectoral productivity shocks and the network structure of production. When the most newsworthy sectors are unrepresentative of the rest of the economy, the public nature of media reporting generates prediction errors about economic conditions that are correlated across sectors. Sectoral media focus can thus cause fluctuations in aggregate output that are caused by undue optimism or pessimism shared by all sectors in the economy. Because what news media report and how firms' resulting posteriors differ from the true state of the world are deterministic functions of the cross-section of productivity shocks, the theory makes tight predictions about when and why firms will be unduly optimistic or pessimistic.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan Chahrour & Kristoffer Nimark, 2016. "Sectoral Media Focus and Aggregate Fluctuations," 2016 Meeting Papers 1034, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed016:1034
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    Cited by:

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    2. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Menkhoff, Manuel & Müller, Gernot & Niemann, Knut, 2022. "Firm Expectations and News: Micro v Macro," CEPR Discussion Papers 17768, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Hilde C. Bjørnland & Roberto Casarin & Marco Lorusso & Francesco Ravazzolo, 2023. "Fiscal Policy Regimes in Resource-Rich Economies," Working Papers No 13/2023, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    4. Bertsch, Christoph & Hull, Isaiah & Zhang, Xin, 2021. "Narrative fragmentation and the business cycle," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Ehrmann, Michael & Gnan, Phillipp & Rieder, Kilian, 2023. "Central Bank Communication by ??? The Economics of Public Policy Leaks," CEPR Discussion Papers 18152, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Luca Gambetti & Nicolò Maffei-Faccioli & Sarah Zoi, 2022. "Bad News, Good News: Coverage and Response Asymmetries," Working Paper 2022/8, Norges Bank.
    7. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Müller, Gernot J., 2023. "On FIRE, news, and expectations," Working Papers 42, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    8. Alistair Macaulay & Wenting Song, 2022. "Narrative-Driven Fluctuations in Sentiment: Evidence Linking Traditional and Social Media," Economics Series Working Papers 973, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Dräger, Lena, 2023. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-713, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. Ryan Chahrour & Adam Hale Shapiro & Daniel J. Wilson, 2024. "News Selection and Household Inflation Expectations," Working Paper Series 2024-31, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    11. Zheng, Hannan & Schwenkler, Gustavo, 2020. "The network of firms implied by the news," ESRB Working Paper Series 108, European Systemic Risk Board.
    12. Vito Cormun & Kim Ristolainen, 2024. "Exchange Rate Narratives," Discussion Papers 167, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    13. Jacopo Perego & Sevgi Yuksel, 2022. "Media Competition and Social Disagreement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 223-265, January.
    14. Philippe Andrade & Olivier Coibion & Erwan Gautier & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2020. "No Firm is an Island? How Industry Conditions Shape Firms' Aggregate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 27317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

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