Eggers, A. C.Ellison, M.Lee, Sang Seok2022-02-212022-02-212021-03-190304-3932http://hdl.handle.net/11693/77539The convention in the news media is to announce a recession if a country experiences two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We exploit the arbitrary threshold implied by this practice to identify the economic impact of recession announcements through a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD). Estimation results show that news of a recession leads to a discontinuous fall in consumer confidence, consumption growth and final estimates of GDP growth in a panel of countries. The effect is large, robust and statistically significant.EnglishBusiness cycleRecessionsRegression discontinuity designNews mediaArticle10.1016/j.jmoneco.2021.03.0021873-1295