Empirical Microeconomics | Political Economy | Media Economics
Marcel Garz
Jönköping University
Vita
I am an associate 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.
Contact
Jönköping International Business School, Office B5015, Gjuterigatan 5, 55318 Jönköping, Sweden
+46 36 10 1782
Working Papers
Ownership and Media Slant: Evidence from Swedish Newspapers
With Jonna Rickardsson. May 2021.
Algorithmic Selection and Ideological Diversity of News on Facebook
With Ferenc Szucs. April 2021.
Publications
Cartels in the European Union, Antitrust Action, and Public Attention
With Sabrina Maaß. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 186: 533-547, 2021 (online appendix; working paper version; replication data and code).
Media Influence on Vote Choices: Unemployment News and Incumbents' Electoral Prospects
With Greg Martin. American Journal of Political Science, 65: 278-293, 2020 (working paper version; replication data and code).
Partisan Selective Engagement: Evidence from Facebook
With Jil Sörensen and Daniel Stone. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 177: 91-108, 2020 (online appendix; working paper version; replication data and code).
The Supply of Media Slant Across Outlets and Demand for Slant Within Outlets: Evidence from US Presidential Campaign News
With Gaurav Sood, Daniel Stone, and Justin Wallace, 2020. Forthcoming in European Journal of Political Economy (working paper version; replication data and code).
Political Scandals, Newspapers, and the Election Cycle
With Jil Sörensen, 2019. Forthcoming in Political Behavior (working paper version; replication data and code).
Cautionary Tales: Celebrities, the News Media, and Participation in Tax Amnesties
With Verena Pagels. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 155: 288-300, 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.
Job Insecurity Perceptions and Media Coverage of Labor Market Policy
Journal of Labor Research, 33: 528–544, 2012.
Current
Social media algorithms and news diversity
Media influence on vote choices
In a recent study, Greg Martin and I investigate how news about the economy influences voting decisions. We isolate the effect of the information environment from the effect of change in the underlying economic conditions themselves, by taking advantage of left-digit bias. We show that unemployment figures crossing a round-number “milestone” causes a discontinuous increase in the amount of media coverage devoted to unemployment conditions, and use this discontinuity to estimate the effect of attention to unemployment news on voting, holding constant the actual economic conditions on the ground. Milestone effects on incumbent US Governor vote shares are large and notably asymmetric: bad milestone events hurt roughly twice as much as good milestone events help. Posted: Aug. 03, 2020
Funding for project on Swedish newspaper markets
The Swedish Competition Authority has approved funding in the amount of approx. 180,000 euro for a project of mine entitled “Media Competition and Media Slant in Swedish Newspapers” (with Jonna Rickardsson). The project investigates how competition in local media markets affects the diversity of opinions in newspaper coverage. Specially, we (1) construct an index of ideological slant, (2) investigate which motives of media owners drive the slant, and (3) estimate the causal effect of competition on slant. The results aim to inform the debate on media regulation, with a focus on press subsidies and the measurement of media concentration. Posted: Oct. 03, 2019
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)