Data and Code for: News Media, Inflation, and Sentiment

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Alistair Macaulay, University of Oxford; Wenting Song, Bank of Canada

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
repl_pkg			04/11/2023 12:17:AM
readme.pdf	application/pdf	134.6 KB	04/10/2023 08:16:PM

Project Citation:

Macaulay, Alistair, and Song, Wenting. Data and Code for: News Media, Inflation, and Sentiment. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-04-28. https://doi.org/10.3886/E188161V1

Project Description

Summary:

Data and Code accompanying the paper: We study the relationship between media portrayals of inflation and consumer sentiment. Using tools from natural language processing, we uncover two competing topics 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.

Funding Sources: John Fell OUP Research Fund

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:
      E31 Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
      E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
      E71 Macro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy
      L82 Entertainment; Media

Geographic Coverage: US

Time Period(s): 2014 – 2021

Collection Date(s): 2020 – 2022

Universe:

prevalence of inflation narratives;

popularity of newspapers on Twitter;

effects of inflation narratives in the media on sentiment

Data Type(s): aggregate data; observational data; program source code

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Published Versions

V1 [2023-04-28]

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DDI 2.5

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