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Big news: Climate change and the business cycle

Author

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  • Dietrich, Alexander M.
  • Müller, Gernot J.
  • Schoenle, Raphael

Abstract

News drive expectations about the economy's future fundamentals. Climate change is big news: it will impact the economy profoundly but the effect will take some time to materialize in full. Climate-change expectations thus offer a unique opportunity to study the impact of news on the business cycle. We measure these expectations in a representative survey of US consumers. Respondents expect not much of an impact on GDP growth, but perceive a high probability of costly, rare disasters-suggesting they are salient of climate change. Furthermore, expectations vary systematically with socioeconomic characteristics, media consumption, various information treatments and over time. We calibrate a New Keynesian model with rare disasters to key results of the survey and find that shifts in climate change expectations operate like demand shocks and cause sizeable business cycle fluctuations.

Suggested Citation

  • Dietrich, Alexander M. & Müller, Gernot J. & Schoenle, Raphael, 2023. "Big news: Climate change and the business cycle," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 158, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:tuewef:158
    DOI: 10.15496/publikation-80003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

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