Relatrice: dott.ssa Sarah Zoi - Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

Abstract 

We construct two measures of media coverage of bad and good unemployment figures based on three major US newspapers. Using nonlinear SVAR techniques, we document four facts. (i) There is no significant negativity bias in media coverage of economic events. The asymmetric responsiveness of newspapers to positive and negative economic shifts is entirely explained by higher persistence of bad shocks compared to good shocks. (ii) Bad news are more informative and increase agents' agreement about economic outcomes more than good news. (iii) Consumption reacts to bad news but not to good news. The results hold when excluding the Great Recession.

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