China Bashing: Does Trade Drive the 'Bad' News About China in the U.S.?
21 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2009
Date Written: March 22, 2009
Abstract
We develop a monthly index of "bad" news about China reported in the United States from January 1990 to December 2008. "Bad" is defined as news touching on the following issues: human rights, Tibet, child labor, democracy, and repression. Using this bad news index, we document a peculiar finding: three to four months after a trade deficit shock to the U.S.-China bilateral trade balance, the frequency of bad news published about China by U.S. media outlets rises sharply, then dies off slowly. Statistical analysis reveals that the likelihood that this finding is just a coincidence is relatively small - about 1 to 5 percent. This result suggests that "China bashing" may be endogenous to fluctuations in the U.S.-China bilateral trade balance.
Keywords: U.S.-China Trade, U.S. media, China bashing, human rights, transfer function model
JEL Classification: F13, L82, C22
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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