<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This paper builds upon the Economist’s R-word (recession) index by forming a Croatian version of a media news-based economic uncertainty measure. Using the web archives of the four major Croatian news portals (Index.hr, Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24 sata), an extensive database of as much as 531107 news articles is formed. The R-word index is obtained by calculating the monthly share of recession-related articles. This way Croatia is placed among the few rare world countries which have their own version of this index. It is found that the index is a leading indicator of economic activity in Croatia, preceding GDP growth rates by two months. Using rolling window correlations, the authors also prove that economic agents react to uncertainty shocks in the most intensive manner precisely at the onset of an economic crisis, while the correlation decreases in periods of more stable economic growth rates.</p></abstract>

This paper builds upon the Economist’s R-word (recession) index by forming a Croatian version of a media news-based economic uncertainty measure. Using the web archives of the four major Croatian news portals (Index.hr, Jutarnji list, Večernji list and 24 sata), an extensive database of as much as 531107 news articles is formed. The R-word index is obtained by calculating the monthly share of recession-related articles. This way Croatia is placed among the few rare world countries which have their own version of this index. It is found that the index is a leading indicator of economic activity in Croatia, preceding GDP growth rates by two months. Using rolling window correlations, the authors also prove that economic agents react to uncertainty shocks in the most intensive manner precisely at the onset of an economic crisis, while the correlation decreases in periods of more stable economic growth rates.

The interrelationship between media reports and the recession in Croatia

Croatian Review of Economic, Business and Social Statistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"The interrelationship between media reports and the recession in Croatia"}

This paper builds upon the Economist’s R-word (recession) index by forming a Croatian version of a media news-based economic uncertainty measure. Using the web...

The interrelationship between media reports and the recession in Croatia

Publicado en línea: 11 jul 2017

Páginas: 16 - 34

Recibido: 02 dic 2016

Aceptado: 26 jun 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/crebss-2017-0002

Palabras clave
Business and Consumer Surveys, economic uncertainty, leading indicator, R-word index, recession

© 2017 Mirjana Čižmešija et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The interrelationship between media reports and the recession in Croatia

Publicado en línea: 11 jul 2017

Páginas: 16 - 34

Recibido: 02 dic 2016

Aceptado: 26 jun 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/crebss-2017-0002

Palabras claveBusiness and Consumer Surveys, economic uncertainty, leading indicator, R-word index, recession

© 2017 Mirjana Čižmešija et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Palabras clave
Business and Consumer Surveys, economic uncertainty, leading indicator, R-word index, recession