Macroeconomics Seminar Series. "From Buzz to Bust: How Fake News Shapes the Business Cycle" (Joint Work with T. Assenza, P. Fève and S. Huber)
Published: 11 February 2025
20 February 2025. Professor Fabrice Collard, Toulouse School of Economics (CNRS)
Professor Fabrice Collard, Toulouse School of Economics (CNRS)
"From Buzz to Bust: How Fake News Shapes the Business Cycle" (Joint Work with T. Assenza, P. Fève and S. Huber)
Thursday, 20 February 2025. 15:00-16:30
Room 355, Gilbert Scott Building
Abstract
This paper explores the macroeconomic impact of technology-related fake news, a critical issue largely overlooked in economic research. By constructing a novel dataset of fact-checked technology statements from PolitiFact, we develop a proxy for a technology-related fake news shock and use it to recover their dynamic causal effects on business cycle dynamics. The results reveal that fake news heightens macroeconomic uncertainty, increases unemployment, and depresses production, contributing substantially to business cycle volatility. Notably, fake news conveying negative information exerts a disproportionately larger economic impact, offering important insights into how misinformation distorts economic outcomes and amplifies uncertainty.
Bio
Fabrice Collard is CNRS Senior Researcher at the Toulouse School of Economics and a Research Fellow at CEPR. He was previously Professor of Economics at the University of Bern and Professor at the University of Adelaide. His research centers on quantitative macroeconomics and monetary theory. He received his PhD (1996) from the University of Paris-Sorbonne.
For further information, please contact business-seminar-series@glasgow.ac.uk.
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First published: 11 February 2025