Université de Lausanne
Faculté des
HEC
Département d'économétrie
et d'économie politique
Cahier de recherches économiques du
DEEP No. 13.01
Mathieu Couttenier and Sophie Hatte
February 2013
Abstract
The media report news that in turn influences behaviors. This news is drawn
from a set of available information. In this paper, we study how the set of
information is "exante" affected by anticipated media coverages. First,
we take an exogenous but anticipated shock of media coverage: Olympic Games
and FIFA World Cups. Then, we estimate the effect of this media coverage shock
on the production of reports by a publicity-seeking actor: NGOs. We use a unique
database that collects NGO reports on a sample of 572 firms in 140 countries
between 2002 and 2010. Those reports deal with firm practices, and tone of the
speech of these reports is classified as "good" or "bad"
for the reputation of the firm. We find that these media coverage shocks significantly
impact the production of information. More precisely, stories that are substitute
to sport news (reports on host and participant countries) are significantly
less reported by NGOs, while the number of reports on complement to sport news
(practices of sponsors) significantly increases. Further, in both cases bad
reports overreact compared to good ones.
Keywords: Media; Information; Non Governmental Organizations; Multinational Firms
JEL classification: D83 ; L31 ; L82 ; M14