Data and Code for: Sectoral Media Focus and Aggregate Fluctuations

We formalize the editorial role of news media in a multi-sector economy andshow that media can be an independent source of business cycle fluctuations,even when they report accurate information. Public reporting about a subsetof sectoral developments that are newsworthy but unrepresentative causesfirms across all sectors to hire too much or too little labor. We constructhistorical measures of US sectoral news coverage and use them to calibrateour model. Time-varying media focus generates demand-like fluctuations thatare orthogonal to productivity, even in the absence of non-TFP shocks.Presented with historical sectoral productivity, the model reproduces the2009 Great Recession.