Linking words in economic discourse: Implications for macroeconomic forecasts

This paper develops indicators of unstructured press information by exploiting word vector representations. A model is trained using a corpus covering 90 years of Wall Street Journal content. The information content of the indicators is assessed through business cycle forecast exercises. The vector representations can learn meaningful word associations that are exploited to construct indicators of uncertainty. In-sample and out-of-sample forecast exercises show that the indicators contain valuable information regarding future economic activity. The combination of indices associated with different subjective states (e.g., uncertainty, fear, pessimism) results in further gains in information content. The documented performance is unmatched by previous dictionary-based word counting techniques proposed in the literature.     

What caused the rise of Airbnb? An examination of key macroeconomic factors

The social and economic implications of the Airbnb phenomenon have been the subject of much research. Yet, the academic literature on Airbnb is nascent. Specifically, the issue of whether major macroeconomic conditions affect the supply of Airbnb has not been investigated. To address this gap, we propose a conceptual model that explains the determinants of Airbnb supply and examine the extent to which major macroeconomic factors affect the supply of Airbnb. Specifically, we analyze the effects of hotel room rates (ADR), hotel demand, tourism demand, house prices, gross domestic product (GDP), wages and unemployment on the supply of Airbnb in 50 U.S. states. Results show that increases in hotel ADR, house prices, and GDP have contributed to an increase in the supply of Airbnb, whereas increases in unemployment rates and wages have adverse effects on Airbnb supply. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed within realms of macroeconomic theory.     

新闻基本偏向：当前市场经济语境下劣质报道分析——再论商务传播

本文借鉴美国学者富勒的"新闻报道基本偏向"的观点,对当下中国市场经济语境下劣质新闻报道的现象进行了类型分析、成因探究,指出了当前市场经济转型过程中相关法律约束与道德规范的缺失与劣质新闻中基本偏向趋势存在正相关的因果关系.     

面向新闻领域的中文实体关系抽取

随着互联网技术的快速发展,人们能够及时地获取大量的新闻文本信息,如何从新闻中自动获取关键信息,把新闻中具有价值的信息转化为结构化数据,从而快速有效地获取有用的知识已是迫切需求。实体关系抽取是获取关键信息的方法之一,但目前关于中文的实体关系抽取工作较少。针对基于长短时记忆网络的中文实体识别模型难于提取长距离的依存关系特征和句法特征问题,提出利用双向树形长短时记忆神经网络提取依存句法树的结构特征。在提取的特征的基础上,使用条件随机场判断实体的类别和边界,并在实体识别模型中加入注意力机制提高模型的性能。在《人民日报》数据集和ACE 2005语料库上训练模型,验证了模型的有效性。     

Learning, monetary policy rules, and macroeconomic stability

Several papers have documented a regime switch in US monetary policy from ‘passive’ and destabilizing in the pre-1979 period to ‘active’ and stabilizing afterwards. These studies typically work with DSGE models with rational expectations.This paper relaxes the assumption of rational expectations and allows for learning instead. Economic agents form expectations from simple models and update the parameters through constant-gain learning. In this setting, the paper aims to test whether monetary policy may have been a source of macroeconomic instability in the 1970s by inducing unstable learning dynamics.The model is estimated by Bayesian methods. The constant-gain coefficient is jointly estimated with the structural and policy parameters in the system.The results show that monetary policy was respecting the Taylor principle also in the pre-1979 period and, therefore, did not trigger macroeconomic instability.     

宏观经济波动对工业所有制结构的影响——"国进民退"的回顾与前瞻

本文利用1998—2008年的样本数据,通过实证方法研究宏观经济波动对工业所有制结构的影响,结果表明经济增长速度、货币存量、出口增长率以及通货膨胀与国有工业比重下降速度均呈负相关关系,这说明国进民退是宏观经济景气度影响的结果。因此,我们认为宏观调控政策应从优化国有与非国有企业的融资环境、对微观结构影响的程度等方面去改善国有与非国有工业企业的经营环境。     

The Media's Role in Influencing Perceptions of Housing Values and the Resulting Impact on the Macroeconomy

The housing market is a major component of the economy and persistent negative media reports can adversely affect perceptions and expectations of homeowners as to the value of their home. As a result, households reduce their expenditures and increase their savings in an effort to rebuild lost wealth. In the short run the economy suffers and the recession is magnified. This paper demonstrates, through an empirical study, how negative media reports regarding the deteriorating conditions of the national housing market affects what households feel their housing is worth.     

从新闻报道的特点看英语模糊限制语及其功能

新闻报道的时效性、简明性、有效性、语言准确性等特点决定了英语模糊限制语在新闻报道中的存在,模糊语在英语新闻报道中的使用能增强报道的可信度,增强报道文本的活泼性,适应不同层次的阅读和认知需求,体现一定的社会保护功能。     

Professional forecasters and real-time forecasting with a DSGE model

This paper analyses the real-time forecasting performance of the New Keynesian DSGE model of Galí, Smets and Wouters (2012), estimated on euro area data. It investigates the extent to which the inclusion of forecasts of inflation, GDP growth and unemployment by professional forecasters improve the forecasting performance. We consider two approaches for conditioning on such information. Under the “noise” approach, the mean professional forecasts are assumed to be noisy indicators of the rational expectations forecasts implied by the DSGE model. Under the “news” approach, it is assumed that the forecasts reveal the presence of expected future structural shocks in line with those estimated in the past. The forecasts of the DSGE model are compared with those from a Bayesian VAR model, an AR(1) model, a sample mean and a random walk.     

谈联想在新闻报道中的应用

联想作为新闻工作者不可或缺的一种心理素质,贯穿在采访中的新闻敏感的产生、新闻主题的提炼与新闻写作的全过程。本文就联想在新闻报道中的应用进行了详细探讨。