[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfm/wpaper/2025.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Economic Impact of Recession Announcements

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew C. Eggers

    (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)

  • Martin Ellison

    (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)

  • Sang Seok Lee

    (Bilkent University)

Abstract
The convention in the news media is to announce a recession if a country experiences two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We exploit the arbitrary threshold implied by this practice to identify the economic impact of recession announcements through a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD). Estimation results show that news of a recession leads to a discontinuous fall in consumer confidence, consumption growth and final estimates of GDP growth in a panel of countries. The effect is large, robust and statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew C. Eggers & Martin Ellison & Sang Seok Lee, 2020. "The Economic Impact of Recession Announcements," Discussion Papers 2025, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    • Handle: RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.lse.ac.uk/CFM/assets/pdf/CFM-Discussion-Papers-2020/CFMDP2020-25-Paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    2. Seonghwan Oh & Michael Waldman, 1990. "The Macroeconomic Effects of False Announcements," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 1017-1034.
    3. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    4. Christopher D. Carroll, 1997. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 1-55.
    5. Larcinese, Valentino & Puglisi, Riccardo & Snyder, James M., 2011. "Partisan bias in economic news: Evidence on the agenda-setting behavior of U.S. newspapers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1178-1189.
    6. Julian Kozlowski & Laura Veldkamp & Venky Venkateswaran, 2020. "The Tail That Wags the Economy: Beliefs and Persistent Stagnation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(8), pages 2839-2879.
    7. Teresa Santero & Niels Westerlund, 1996. "Confidence Indicators and Their Relationship to Changes in Economic Activity," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 170, OECD Publishing.
    8. Benhabib, Jess & Farmer, Roger E.A., 1999. "Indeterminacy and sunspots in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 387-448, Elsevier.
    9. Mark Doms & Norman J. Morin, 2004. "Consumer sentiment, the economy, and the news media," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2015. "Business Cycle Dynamics under Rational Inattention," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1502-1532.
    11. John Campbell & Angus Deaton, 1989. "Why is Consumption So Smooth?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(3), pages 357-373.
    12. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Rocío Titiunik, 2019. "Regression Discontinuity Designs Using Covariates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 442-451, July.
    13. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 116-159.
    14. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    15. George A. Akerlof, 2003. "Behavioral Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Behavior," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 47(1), pages 25-47, March.
    16. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2014. "News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 993-1074, December.
    17. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2020. "Simple Local Polynomial Density Estimators," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 115(531), pages 1449-1455, July.
    18. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    19. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Reis, Ricardo, 2010. "Imperfect Information and Aggregate Supply," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 5, pages 183-229, Elsevier.
    20. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    21. George‐Marios Angeletos & Fabrice Collard & Harris Dellas, 2018. "Quantifying Confidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1689-1726, September.
    22. Kristoffer P. Nimark, 2014. "Man-Bites-Dog Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2320-2367, August.
    23. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael & Tong, Matthew, 2019. "The long-run information effect of central bank communication," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 185-202.
    24. David N. Figlio & Maurice E. Lucas, 2004. "What's in a Grade? School Report Cards and the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 591-604, June.
    25. John Duffy & Eric O'N. Fisher, 2005. "Sunspots in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 510-529, June.
    26. Farmer Roger E. A. & Guo Jang-Ting, 1994. "Real Business Cycles and the Animal Spirits Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 42-72, June.
    27. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.
    28. Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2022. "Regression Discontinuity Designs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 821-851, August.
    29. Seonghwan Oh & Michael Waldman, 2005. "The Index of Leading Economic Indicators as a Source of Expectational Shocks," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 75-95, Winter.
    30. MacKuen, Michael B. & Erikson, Robert S. & Stimson, James A., 1992. "Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U.S. Economy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(3), pages 597-611, September.
    31. Alan Blinder & Alan Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Working Papers 875, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    32. Howitt, Peter & McAfee, R Preston, 1992. "Animal Spirits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 493-507, June.
    33. Rodriguez Mora, Jose V. & Schulstad, Paul, 2007. "The effect of GNP announcements on fluctuations of GNP growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1922-1940, November.
    34. Burt S. Barnow & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik & Gonzalo Vazquez‐Bare, 2017. "Comparing Inference Approaches for RD Designs: A Reexamination of the Effect of Head Start on Child Mortality," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 643-681, June.
    35. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    36. Thomas Gilbert & Shimon Kogan & Lars Lochstoer & Ataman Ozyildirim, 2012. "Investor Inattention and the Market Impact of Summary Statistics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 336-350, February.
    37. Christopher D. Carroll & Andrew A. Samwick, 1998. "How Important Is Precautionary Saving?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 410-419, August.
    38. Paul Grauwe, 2011. "Animal spirits and monetary policy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 47(2), pages 423-457, June.
    39. Paul C. Tetlock, 2011. "All the News That's Fit to Reprint: Do Investors React to Stale Information?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1481-1512.
    40. Christopher D. Carroll, 1992. "The Buffer-Stock Theory of Saving: Some Macroeconomic Evidence," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(2), pages 61-156.
    41. Laura L. Veldkamp, 2011. "Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9621.
    42. Pope, Devin G., 2009. "Reacting to rankings: Evidence from "America's Best Hospitals"," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1154-1165, December.
    43. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    44. repec:pri:cepsud:99blinderkrueger is not listed on IDEAS
    45. Martha A. Starr, 2012. "Consumption, Sentiment, And Economic News," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 1097-1111, October.
    46. Suzanna De Boef & Paul M. Kellstedt, 2004. "The Political (and Economic) Origins of Consumer Confidence," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 633-649, October.
    47. Azariadis, Costas, 1981. "Self-fulfilling prophecies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 380-396, December.
    48. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. James Ming Chen & Mobeen Ur Rehman, 2021. "A Pattern New in Every Moment: The Temporal Clustering of Markets for Crude Oil, Refined Fuels, and Other Commodities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-58, September.
    2. Stephanie L. Chan, 2021. "The Social Value of Public Information When Not Everyone is Privately Informed," Working Papers 2021-09-18, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    2. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    3. Driscoll, John C. & Holden, Steinar, 2014. "Behavioral economics and macroeconomic models," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 133-147.
    4. Lamla, Michael J. & Lein, Sarah M., 2014. "The role of media for consumers’ inflation expectation formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 62-77.
    5. Killian McCarthy & Wilfred Dolfsma, 2009. "Editor's Feature," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 531-548.
    6. Steinar Holden, 2012. "Implications of insights from behavioral economics for macroeconomic models," Working Paper 2012/12, Norges Bank.
    7. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    8. Zeno Enders & Michael Kleemann & Gernot J. Muller, 2021. "Growth Expectations, Undue Optimism, and Short-Run Fluctuations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 905-921, December.
    9. Michael J. Lamla & Thomas Maag, 2012. "The Role of Media for Inflation Forecast Disagreement of Households and Professional Forecasters," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1325-1350, October.
    10. Crespo Cristian, 2020. "Beyond Manipulation: Administrative Sorting in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 164-181, January.
    11. Juan Camilo Anzoátegui-Zapata & Juan Camilo Galvis-Ciro, 2020. "Disagreements in Consumer Inflation Expectations: Empirical Evidence for a Latin American Economy," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 16(2), pages 99-122, November.
    12. Luca Gambetti & Nicolò Maffei-Faccioli & Sarah Zoi, 2022. "Bad News, Good News: Coverage and Response Asymmetries," Working Paper 2022/8, Norges Bank.
    13. Blaise Melly & Rafael Lalive, 2020. "Estimation, Inference, and Interpretation in the Regression Discontinuity Design," Diskussionsschriften dp2016, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    14. Kettlewell, Nathan & Siminski, Peter, 2020. "Optimal Model Selection in RDD and Related Settings Using Placebo Zones," IZA Discussion Papers 13639, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Yingying Xu & Zhixin Liu & Zichao Jia & Chi-Wei Su, 2017. "Is time-variant information stickiness state-dependent?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 16(3), pages 169-187, December.
    16. Mark Doms & Norman J. Morin, 2004. "Consumer sentiment, the economy, and the news media," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Crespo Cristian, 2020. "Beyond Manipulation: Administrative Sorting in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 164-181, January.
    18. Bennani, Hamza, 2018. "Media coverage and ECB policy-making: Evidence from an augmented Taylor rule," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 26-38.
    19. Munday, Tim & Brookes, James, 2021. "Mark my words: the transmission of central bank communication to the general public via the print media," Bank of England working papers 944, Bank of England.
    20. Meltem Dayioglu & Müşerref Küçükbayrak & Semih Tumen, 2022. "The impact of age-specific minimum wages on youth employment and education: a regression discontinuity analysis," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(6), pages 1352-1377, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy

    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:cfm:wpaper:2025. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Helen Power (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmlseuk.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.