The Influence of Negative Newspaper Coverage on Consumer Confidence : The Dutch Case

This paper studies the empirical relationship between the real economy, consumer confidence and economic news coverage in national newspapers for the Netherlands during the period 1990-2008. Media-attention for economic developments Granger-causes consumer confidence, with more negative news decreasing consumer confidence; this result holds when controlling for the real economy (stock-market). This suggests that in line with many popular concerns negative news is among factors influencing the hardness of the landing of the current credit-crisis, whereas positive news might have been a contributing factor in the build-up of asset- and housing bubbles.