Duell oder Berichterstattung?

Televised debates between the German Chancellor and his challenger were held for the first time in the election campaign in 2002. Hence we had the opportunity to examine the effects of debates as well as the impact of the follow-up news coverage of the debate. By combining a content analysis of debate coverage and a representative survey, we explored how voters’ reception of the first TV debate and their reception of the debate coverage interacted. Voters were influenced both by the impression they formed by directly viewing the debate and by the indirect impression they gained from follow-up media coverage. On the one hand we found an impact on voters’ views of the candidates’ appearance and of who won the debate. On the other hand we found an impact on voters’ general notions of the candidates’ personalities and competences. Furthermore there were — probably rather short-lived — shifts of candidate and party preferences.     

The Halle Economic Projection Model

In this paper we develop an open economy model explaining the joint determination of output, inflation, interest rates, unemployment and the exchange rate in a multi-country framework. Our model—the Halle Economic Projection Model (HEPM)—is closely related to studies published by Carabenciov et al. (2008a,b,c). Our main contribution is that we model the Euro area countries separately. In doing so, we consider Germany, France, and Italy which represent together about 70% of Euro area GDP. The model combines core equations of the New-Keynesian standard DSGE model with empirically useful ad-hoc equations. We estimate this model using Bayesian techniques and evaluate the forecasting properties. Additionally, we provide an impulse response analysis and historical shock decomposition.     

Should Forecasters Use Real‐Time Data to Evaluate Leading Indicator Models for GDP Prediction? German Evidence

In this paper, we investigate whether differences exist among forecasts using real‐time or latest‐available data to predict gross domestic product (GDP). We employ mixed‐frequency models and real‐time data to reassess the role of surveys and financial data relative to industrial production and orders in Germany. Although we find evidence that forecast characteristics based on real‐time and final data releases differ, we also observe minimal impacts on the relative forecasting performance of indicator models. However, when obtaining the optimal combination of soft and hard data, the use of final release data may understate the role of survey information.     

FORECASTING CURRENCY CRISES: WHICH METHODS SIGNALED THE SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS OF JUNE 2006?

In this paper we test the ability of three of the most popular methods to forecast South African currency crises with a special emphasis on their out‐of‐sample performance. We choose the latest crisis of June 2006 to conduct an out‐of‐sample experiment. The results show that the signals approach was not able to forecast the out‐of‐sample crisis correctly; the probit approach was able to predict the crisis but only with models, that were based on raw data. The Markov‐regime‐switching approach predicts the out‐of‐sample crisis well. However, the results are not straightforward. In‐sample, the probit models performed remarkably well and were also able to detect, at least to some extent, out‐of‐sample currency crises before their occurrence. The recommendation is to not restrict the forecasting to only one approach.     

Das Erklärungsdilemma der Medienwirkungsforschung.

Starting from the deductive-nomological model, the partitioning of variance, several classifications of media effects a multi-level logic, the paper presents a variance-based model of media effects beyond the single recipient. However, when explaining media effects on meso- and macro-level units, media effects research faces a dilemma. The article discusses this dilemma both formally and by using selected examples (stock market, public opinion, right-wing violence). The dilemma of explaining media effects has to be taken seriously since it entails problems going far beyond the simple question of individual and aggregate data. Part of it are the problems of modeling the link between micro and macro-level as well as its dynamics – which raises further questions such as “where do media effects end?“.     

Die These der Negativitätsumkehrung

The article explores the effects of negativity bias in political coverage on cognitions, emotions and attitudes. Starting from psychological considerations on cognition and emotion as well as from the assimilation-contrast-effect, the article develops a hypothesis of ‘negativity inversion’. This postulates that cumulative media criticism that politicians are unable to solve political problems does not only shape a negative image of politicians, but also establishes the impression that many political problems remain unsolved. This impression is the backdrop for judgments on specific political solutions which appear more positively and find more approval among recipients than without such a contrasting background. Results from an experiment manipulating (1) media images of politicians’ capability to solve problems and (2) media images of a regional political problem support the hypothesis of negativity inversion.     

Bottom-up or direct? Forecasting German GDP in a data-rich environment

In this paper, we investigate whether there are benefits in disaggregating GDP into its components when nowcasting GDP. To answer this question, we conduct a realistic out-of-sample experiment that deals with the most prominent problems in short-term forecasting: mixed frequencies, ragged-edge data, asynchronous data releases and a large set of potential information. We compare a direct leading indicator-based GDP forecast with two bottom-up procedures—that is, forecasting GDP components from the production side or from the demand side. Generally, we find that the direct forecast performs relatively well. Among the disaggregated procedures, the production side seems to be better suited than the demand side to form a disaggregated GDP nowcast.