Measuring social unrest using media reports

Philip Barrett, Maximiliano Appendino, Kate Nguyen and Jorge de Leon Miranda

Journal of Development Economics, 2022, vol. 158, issue C

Abstract: We present a new index of social unrest based on counts of relevant media reports, covering 130 countries monthly starting in 1986. Spikes in the index identify major events, which match event timelines from external sources for four major regional waves of social unrest. We assess our index against others and show it performs as well as the next best alternative but with superior coverage. Social unrest is associated with a 3 percentage point increase in the frequency of social unrest domestically and a 1 percent increase in neighbors in the next six months. Despite this, social unrest is not a better predictor of future social unrest than the country average rate. We investigate economic performance around unrest events, showing that (1) macroeconomic performance is not robustly correlated with subsequent unrest and (2) after unrest events, positive output surprises are smaller but negative ones unchanged.

Keywords: Social unrest; Media coverage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C82 F50 H80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Measuring Social Unrest Using Media Reports (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:158:y:2022:i:c:s0304387822000803

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102924

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