[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v55y2018icp511-525.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic effects of U.S. presidential tax communication: Evidence from a correlated topic model

Author

Listed:
  • Dybowski, T.P.
  • Adämmer, P.
Abstract
We combine a probabilistic topic model and a dictionary-based sentiment analysis to construct a time series, which indicates when and how (positive vs. negative) the U.S. president communicates his tax policy news to the public. The econometric analyses show that optimistic tax policy statements stimulate consumption, investment, and output, even after controlling for tax foresight. We also find that consumer sentiment reacts positively to more optimistic tax news, suggesting that sentiment plays an important role in the transmission from U.S. presidential tax policy communication to economic activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Dybowski, T.P. & Adämmer, P., 2018. "The economic effects of U.S. presidential tax communication: Evidence from a correlated topic model," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 511-525.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:55:y:2018:i:c:p:511-525
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.05.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268017302355
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.05.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.).
    2. Grimmer, Justin & Stewart, Brandon M., 2013. "Text as Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 267-297, July.
    3. Barsky, Robert B. & Sims, Eric R., 2011. "News shocks and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 273-289.
    4. Karel Mertens & Morten Overgaard Ravn, 2011. "Understanding the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated Tax Policy Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(1), pages 27-54, January.
    5. Poterba, James M., 1989. "Tax reform and the market for tax-exempt debt," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 537-562, August.
    6. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    7. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2012. "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated US Tax Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 145-181, May.
    8. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael, 2016. "Shocking language: Understanding the macroeconomic effects of central bank communication," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(S1), pages 114-133.
    9. Unknown, 2014. "Media Coverage 2014," 2014: Ethics, Efficiency and Food Security: Feeding the 9 Billion, Well, 26-28 August 2014 225573, Crawford Fund.
    10. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker & Shu‐Chun Susan Yang, 2013. "Fiscal Foresight and Information Flows," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 1115-1145, May.
    11. Falagiarda, Matteo & Gregori, Wildmer Daniel, 2015. "The impact of fiscal policy announcements by the Italian government on the sovereign spread: A comparative analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 288-304.
    12. Alan S. Blinder & Mark W. Watson, 2016. "Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 1015-1045, April.
    13. 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.
    14. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Sims, Eric R., 2012. "Confidence and the transmission of government spending shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 235-249.
    15. Margaret E. Roberts & Brandon M. Stewart & Edoardo M. Airoldi, 2016. "A Model of Text for Experimentation in the Social Sciences," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 111(515), pages 988-1003, July.
    16. Eric M. Leeper & Alexander W. Richter & Todd B. Walker, 2012. "Quantitative Effects of Fiscal Foresight," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 115-144, May.
    17. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    18. Vegard Høghaug Larsen, 2021. "Components Of Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(2), pages 769-788, May.
    19. Peter Fortune, 1996. "Do municipal bond yields forecast tax policy?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 29-48.
    20. Ahmed, M. Iqbal & Cassou, Steven P., 2016. "Does consumer confidence affect durable goods spending during bad and good economic times equally?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 86-97.
    21. Michael Schwert, 2017. "Municipal Bond Liquidity and Default Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1683-1722, August.
    22. Margaret Roberts & Brandon Stewart & Tingley, Dustin, 2014. "stm: R Package for Structural Topic Models," Working Paper 176291, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    23. MacKinnon, James G, 1996. "Numerical Distribution Functions for Unit Root and Cointegration Tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 601-618, Nov.-Dec..
    24. Eric M. Leeper & Alexander W. Richter & Todd B. Walker, 2012. "Corrigendum: Quantitative Effects of Fiscal Foresight," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 283-283, August.
    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. Adam Jassem & Lenard Lieb & Rui Jorge Almeida & Nalan Bac{s}turk & Stephan Smeekes, 2021. "Min(d)ing the President: A text analytic approach to measuring tax news," Papers 2104.03261, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    2. Jon Ellingsen & Vegard H. Larsen & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2020. "News Media vs. FRED-MD for Macroeconomic Forecasting," CESifo Working Paper Series 8639, CESifo.
    3. 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.
    4. Jon Ellingsen & Vegard H. Larsen & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2022. "News media versus FRED‐MD for macroeconomic forecasting," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(1), pages 63-81, January.
    5. Sturm, Silke, 2019. "Political Competition: How to Measure Party Strategy in Direct Voter Communication using Social Media Data?," Hamburg Discussion Papers in International Economics 1, University of Hamburg, Department of Economics.
    6. Ito, Asei & Lim, Jaehwan & Zhang, Hongyong, 2023. "Catching the political leader's signal: Economic policy uncertainty and firm investment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Michal Ovádek & Nicolas Lampach & Arthur Dyevre, 2020. "What’s the talk in Brussels? Leveraging daily news coverage to measure issue attention in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 204-232, June.
    8. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2023. "A one-hundred-year structural topic modeling analysis of the knowledge structure of international management research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3905-3935, August.
    9. Vincenzo Carrieri & Maria De Paola & Francesca Gioia, 2021. "The health-economy trade-off during the Covid-19 pandemic: Communication matters," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-25, September.
    10. Bui, Dzung & Dräger, Lena & Hayo, Bernd & Nghiem, Giang, 2023. "Macroeconomic expectations and consumer sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of others’ beliefs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    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. T. Philipp Dybowski & J. Nikolaj Dybowski & Philipp Adämmer, 2016. "The Economic Effects of U.S. Presidential Tax Communication," CQE Working Papers 4916, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    2. Dybowski, T. Philipp, 2015. "Tracing the Role of Foresight on the Effects of U.S. Tax Policy: Evidence from a Time-Varying SVAR," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113049, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Efrem Castelnuovo & Guay Lim, 2019. "What Do We Know About the Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Policy? A Brief Survey of the Literature on Fiscal Multipliers," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 52(1), pages 78-93, March.
    4. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    5. Daniela Fantozzi & Alessio Muscarnera, 2021. "A News-based Policy Index for Italy: Expectations and Fiscal Policy," CEIS Research Paper 509, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 11 Mar 2021.
    6. Sims, Eric & Wolff, Jonathan, 2018. "The state-dependent effects of tax shocks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 57-85.
    7. Kang, Jihye & Kim, Soyoung, 2022. "Government spending news and surprise shocks: It’s the timing and persistence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    8. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker & Shu‐Chun Susan Yang, 2013. "Fiscal Foresight and Information Flows," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 1115-1145, May.
    9. Virkola, Tuomo, 2014. "Exchange Rate Regime, Fiscal Foresight and the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy," ETLA Reports 20, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    10. Herrera, Ana María & Rangaraju, Sandeep Kumar, 2019. "The quantitative effects of tax foresight: Not all states are equal," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Giovanni Angelini & Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2023. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy‐SVARs Robust?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 95-122, February.
    12. 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.
    13. Born, Benjamin & Peter, Alexandra & Pfeifer, Johannes, 2013. "Fiscal news and macroeconomic volatility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2582-2601.
    14. Désirée I. Christofzik & Angela Fuest & Robin Jessen, 2022. "Macroeconomic Effects of the Anticipation and Implementation of Tax Changes in Germany: Evidence from a Narrative Account," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 62-81, January.
    15. Eric M. Leeper & Alexander W. Richter & Todd B. Walker, 2012. "Quantitative Effects of Fiscal Foresight," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 115-144, May.
    16. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    17. de Ridder, M. & Pfajfar, D., 2017. "Policy Shocks and Wage Rigidities: Empirical Evidence from Regional Effects of National Shocks," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1717, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Adam Jassem & Lenard Lieb & Rui Jorge Almeida & Nalan Bac{s}turk & Stephan Smeekes, 2021. "Min(d)ing the President: A text analytic approach to measuring tax news," Papers 2104.03261, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    19. Agata Szymańska, 2018. "Wpływ polityki fiskalnej na PKB w krajach Unii Europejskiej spoza strefy euro," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 49-74.
    20. Nadav Ben Zeev & Evi Pappa, 2017. "Chronicle of a War Foretold: The Macroeconomic Effects of Anticipated Defence Spending Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(603), pages 1568-1597, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax policy; U.S. president; News; Sentiment; Topic models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

    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:eee:poleco:v:55:y:2018:i:c:p:511-525. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    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.