We construct a Hotelling-type model of two media providers, each of whom can issue fake and/or real news and each of whom can invest in the debunking of their rival's fake news. The model assumes that consumers have an innate preference for one provider or the other and value real news. However,...

This study uses an original state-level data set to investigate whether press coverage on trials for tax evasion by celebrities affects the likelihood that other tax payers participate in Germany's tax amnesty program. To identify the causal effect, we use exogenous variation in the reporting,...

This paper presents an empirical test for the hypothesis that US news coverage of al-Qaeda causes al-Qaeda attacks. To isolate causality, disaster deaths worldwide provide an instrumental variable crowding out al-Qaeda coverage. Studying daily al-Qaeda coverage by CNN, NBC, CBS, and Fox News, as...

We investigate the existence of an "electoral cycle bias" in the timing of media coverage of news with high political value. In particular, we analyze how the electoral cycles at the regional level influence the coverage of news about corruption scandals in the Italian Regional Health Systems by...

In a large-scale online experiment with U.S. Democrats, we examine how the demand for a newsletter about an economic relief plan changes when the newsletter content is fact-checked. We first document an overall muted demand for factchecking when the newsletter features stories from an...

Media coverage of humanitarian crises is widely believed to influence charitable giving, yet this assertion has received little empirical scrutiny. Using Internet donations after the 2004 tsunami as a case study, we show that media coverage of disasters has a dramatic impact on donations to...

Are editors’ choices of front page news based on the potential complementarities between the news items? This paper studies front page choices made by editors of major newspapers in the US. I document that newspapers front pages are biased to certain combinations of news on top of biased to...

This chapter studies situations where media sources deliberately deviate from truthful reporting in order to manipulate electoral outcomes. Media capture occurs when the government actively attempts to influence the media industry. We instead speak of media power when news organizations engage...

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the relation between a target firm’s media coverage (measured by degree of media coverage, positive and negative media coverage) and various takeover characteristics. We find that media coverage is negatively associated with the takeover...

This paper investigates the impact of media coverage on the nonpracticing entity (NPE) patent litigation to the defendant firms. Using a sample of high-tech and patent intensive firms from the U.S. market between 2000 and 2019, we find that the highly visible firms are vastly targeted by the...