May

2

First, "recession" stories seem to exhibit normal business cycle characteristics; the number of stories rises during periods of slow growth and recession and remains low during periods of economic expansion.

Second, recession stories seem to peak toward the end of the recession, or shortly after, and then fall sharply, which suggests that this indicator might be useful in helping identify troughs, though perhaps less so for peaks.

Third, although the two newspaper counts show a high degree of correlation (0.86), the number of recession stories that appear in the New York Times is usually larger than the number that appear in the Wall Street Journal.

This was particularly evident in the 1973-75 and the 1990-91 recessions. Finally, despite a noticeable jump in the number of "recession stories" in the Wall Street Journal in March 2007, both series remain at levels consistent with economic expansion.


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