Delegated information choice

Kristoffer Nimark () and Stefan Pitschner

No 11323, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: News media provide an editorial service for their audiences by monitoring a large number of events and by selecting the most newsworthy of these to report. Using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model to classify news articles, we document the editorial function of US newspapers. We find that, while different newspapers on average tend to emphasize different topics, news coverage becomes more homogenous across newspapers after major events. We propose a theoretical model that can match these facts. In the model, agents delegate the choice of what to get information about to specialized providers that condition on ex post outcomes before deciding what to report. Because what different information providers choose to report is state dependent, the degree to which information about a given event is common among agents is endogenous and depends both on agents' preferences and the distribution of possible events. If agents have a strategic motive, they respond more strongly to events that they can infer are closer to common knowledge. Because different providers in some states of the world choose to report the same event, agents' actions are more correlated compared to a model in which agents choose ex ante what to get information about.

Keywords: News media; Public information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11323 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11323

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11323

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().