Empirical Microeconomics | Public Economics | Political Economy

Marcel Garz

Jönköping University

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Vita

I am an assistant professor of economics at Jönköping University. Most of my work focuses on the economics of news markets, especially from an empirical perspective. I am particularly interested in issues with political implications, such as media slant and negativity. My research is often based on panel data and emphasizes the identification of causal effects.

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Contact

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Jönköping International Business School, Office B5045, Gjuterigatan 5, 55318 Jönköping, Sweden

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marcel.garz[a]ju.se

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+46 36 10 1782

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Google Scholar

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Working Papers

Media Influence on Vote Choices: Unemployment News and Incumbents' Electoral Prospects

With Greg Martin. March 2019.

Partisan Selective Engagement: Evidence from Facebook

With Jil Sörensen and Daniel Stone. March 2019.

What Drives Demand for Media Slant?

With Gaurav Sood, Daniel Stone, and Justin Wallace. October 2018.

Cartels in the European Union, Antitrust Action, and Public Attention

With Sabrina Maaß. October 2018.

Political Scandals, Newspapers, and the Election Cycle

With Jil Sörensen. April 2019.

Quantitative Methods in Economic Research on Media and Communication

November 2018.

Publications

Cautionary Tales: Celebrities, the News Media, and Participation in Tax Amnesties

With Verena Pagels. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming, 2018 (working paper version; replication data and code).

Effects of Unemployment News on Economic Perceptions – Evidence from German Federal States

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 68: 172-190, 2018 (working paper version; replication data and code).

Retirement, Consumption of Political Information, and Political Knowledge

European Journal of Political Economy, 53: 109-119, 2018 (working paper version; code for replication).

Politicians under Investigation: The News Media’s Effect on the Likelihood of Resignation

With Jil Sörensen. Journal of Public Economics, 153: 82-91, 2017 (working paper version; replication data and code).

The Online Market for Illegal Copies of Magazines: A German Case Study

With A. Rott and M. Wass von Czege. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59: 169–183, 2015.

Bad News Sells: The Demand for News Magazines and the Tone of Their Covers

With M. Arango-Kure and A. Rott. Journal of Media Economics, 27: 199–214, 2014.

Good News and Bad News: Evidence of Media Bias in Unemployment Reports

Public Choice, 161: 499–515, 2014.

Labour Market Segmentation: Standard and Non-Standard Employment in Germany

German Economic Review, 14: 349–371, 2013.

Unemployment Expectations, Excessive Pessimism, and News Coverage

Journal of Economic Psychology, 34: 156–168, 2013.

Employment and Wages in Germany Since the 2004 Deregulation of the Temporary Agency Industry

International Labour Review, 152: 307–326, 2013.

Job Insecurity Perceptions and Media Coverage of Labor Market Policy

Journal of Labor Research, 33: 528–544, 2012.

Current

4th Economics of Media Bias Workshop

After a successful start of the series in June 2015, the fourth Economics of Media Bias Workshop will take place on February 21-22, 2019, in Berlin, Germany. Eliana La Ferrara (Bocconi University) will deliver the keynote speech. The workshop, which is organized by my colleagues and me, addresses the forms, causes, and consequences of media bias, especially in news markets. The program can be downloaded here. Posted: Dec. 04, 2018 (updated: Feb. 12, 2019)

Slant of German News Outlets on Facebook

In a current working paper, my co-authors and I use text mining techniques to investigate the political bias of Facebook news pages. Our sample consists of 84 German news outlets, including all national newspapers and news magazines, several regional newspapers, as well as the most important newscasts and online news portals. We analyze the language of more than 2 million Facebook posts by these outlets and compare it with the language used by the main political parties – AfD, CDU/CSU, FDP, Grüne, Linke, NPD, Piraten, and SPD – in their election programs. Measures of text similarity allow us to approximate the ideological congruence between the Facebook news pages and the parties. For example, this measure can be used to determine the outlets’ position in the political left-right spectrum, as shown below. Posted: Nov. 30, 2017 (updated: May 18, 2018)

: Popularity and slant of Facebook news pages (national outlets)

: Popularity and slant of Facebook news pages (regional outlets)

Investigating the “Hoeneß effect”

In a new study, my co-author and I investigate whether press coverage on celebrities with tax issues affects the behavior of other tax payers. We compile an original data set for Germany, including regional information on the amount of tax payers using amnesty regulations to voluntarily disclose taxes they have evaded. The data set also includes counts of news reports published by 6 national and 54 local newspapers that address celebrity tax evaders who were publicly tried between January 2010 and June 2016. To identify the causal effect, we use exogenous variation in the reporting, resulting from disasters and terrorist attacks that coincide with the celebrity trials. Instrumental variable estimates suggest that an increase in news coverage by the amount of an average trial raises participation in the tax amnesty program by approximately 22.5%. Posted: Sep. 1, 2017 (updated: Sep. 4, 2018)

Research Network obtains funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG)

My colleagues and I have been working on topics related to media bias for some time already. The German Research Foundation (DFG) recently agreed to support a proposal for an international, scientific network. The Research Network Economics of Media Bias promotes the discussion of ideas and work in the area, and it aims at integrating young researchers by connecting them with more experienced economists. As part of the network, it will be possible to continue the series of workshops “Economics of Media Bias”. Posted: Apr. 14, 2016