Are (More) Economic News Good for the Economy? Case on Indonesia Sub-nationals

The online media has not only capture news at the national level but also deliver news on specific regions, either the province(s) or local governments. A focus on delivering more local economic news, may also align to trend of decentralization policies, triggered especially after period of post-1998 and the adoption of sub-national election (Morrell, 2005). Previous studies mostly explored of how economic news may affect election outcome (Holbrook, 2004), but not on the effect to related economic outcome. We use news data from four large media online, as follows: Kompas, Okezone, Republika, Sindonews, and Tribunnews, over the year of 2010 up to 2015. The data of economic news category, as it focused on news at the province and local level, are specific news classified in 13 categories. Based on fixed-effect panel regression, our preliminary finding indicates of how economic news may positively affected economic outcome – referring to per capita GRDP (Gross Regional Domestic Product). By category ofecoonomic news, news on investments and on tourism tat have positive effect on province per capita GRDP. Meanwhile, on the effect of political event, we only found a significant effect of province election in the case of election year 2012. For these provinces with election year in 2012, more economic news instead associated with lower province per capita GRDP.