IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v113y2023p172-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

News Media, Inflation, and Sentiment

Author

Listed:
  • Alistair Macaulay
  • Wenting Song

Abstract

We study the relationship between media portrayals of inflation and consumer sentiment. Using tools from natural language processing, we uncover two competing narratives in US news coverage of inflation: the first relates inflation to financial variables, while the second relates inflation to real variables. As inflation rose in 2021, media increasingly emphasized the real economy. Linking inflation news to social network data from Twitter, we find that exposure to articles emphasizing the connection between inflation and the real economy significantly reduces sentiment, particularly in periods of high inflation. Shifting media narratives may therefore have contributed to declining consumer sentiment in 2021.

Suggested Citation

  • Alistair Macaulay & Wenting Song, 2023. "News Media, Inflation, and Sentiment," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 172-176, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:113:y:2023:p:172-76
    DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20231117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20231117
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E188161V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20231117.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pandp.20231117?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    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:aea:apandp:v:113:y:2023:p:172-76. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.