Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T15:54:51.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Price of Media Capture and the Debasement of the French Newspaper Industry During the Interwar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2014

Vincent Bignon  and
Marc Flandreau
Vincent Bignon
Affiliation:
Economist, Bank of France and Affiliated Researcher, EconomiX – University Paris Nanterre. Banque de France, DGEI – DEMFI – Pomone (041-1422); 31, rue des Petits Champs, 75049 Paris Cedex 01 France. E-mail: [email protected].
Marc Flandreau
Affiliation:
Economist, Bank of France and Affiliated Researcher, EconomiX – University Paris Nanterre. Banque de France, DGEI – DEMFI – Pomone (041-1422); 31, rue des Petits Champs, 75049 Paris Cedex 01 France. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Measurement of the value of “media capture” (the control of newspapers by business or political interests) is difficult. However, if capture is valuable, it should affect the price of newspaper shares. Useful information about the value of media capture should be retrievable from Stock Exchange data. Interwar France provides a unique setting to implement this idea because key newspapers floated voting and nonvoting stocks. Combined with takeover prices, data yield estimates of the price of media capture and of the time-series evolution of this price. Comparison with Britain sheds new light on a dark episode of French history.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 799 - 830
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The research on which this article is based was conducted when Bignon was a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute. The authors thank Gabriel Geisler Mesevage, a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate Institute in Geneva for excellent research assistance. We thank Jean-Pierre Dormois for the Koestler quote and Muriel Petit-Konczyk for help with French financial data. We are grateful for comments from Olivier Accominotti, Francesco d'Acunto, Stefano Battilossi, Jordi Domènech, Leopoldo Ferguson, Christian Hellwig, André Liebig, Pilar Nogués-Marco, Jaime Reis, Albrecht Ritschl, Pierre Sicsic, François Velde as well as seminar participants at Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, February 2012, the 10th Media Workshop in Bogotá, October 2012, the London School of Economics, November 2012, the Paris School of Economics, December 2012, and the ISNIE conference in Florence, June 2013. We thank the editor and two anonymous referees for their careful suggestions and insight. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Banque de France nor of the Eurosystem.

References

REFERENCES

Albert, Pierre. “Remarques sur la stagnation des tirages de la presse française dans l'entre-deux-guerres.” Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 18, no. 4 (1971): 539–50.Google Scholar
Albert, Pierre. “La difficile adaptation de la presse aux temps modernes, (1919–1940).” In Histoire Générale de la Presse Française 3: de 1871 à 1940, edited by Bellanger, Claude, Godechot, Jacques, Guiral, Pierre, and Terrou, Fernand, 447–622. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972.Google Scholar
Amaury, Francine. Le Petit Parisien, 1876–1944, Histoire du plus grand quotidien de la IIIe République. 2 volumes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972.Google Scholar
Simon, Anderson, and McLaren, John. “Media Mergers and Media Bias with Rational Consumers.” Journal of the European Economic Association (10), no. 4 (2012): 831–59.Google Scholar
Baron, David P. “Persistent Media Bias.” Journal of Public Economics 90, no. 1–2 (2006): 1–36.Google Scholar
Timothy, Besley, and Prat, Andrea. “Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability.” The American Economic Review (96), no. 3 (2006): 720–36.Google Scholar
Vincent, Bignon, and Flandreau, Marc. “The Economics of Badmouthing: Libel Law and the Underworld of the Financial Press in France Before World War I.” The Journal of Economic History 71, no. 3 (2011): 616–53.Google Scholar
Vincent, Bignon, and Miscio, Antonio. “Media Bias in Financial Newspapers: Evidence from Early Twentieth-Century France.” European Review of Economic History (14), no. 3 (2010): 383–432.Google Scholar
Bloch, Marc. L'étrange défaite, témoignage écrit en 1940. Paris: Éditions Franc-Tireur, 1946.Google Scholar
L., Bovitz, Gregory, Druckman, James N. and Lupia, Arthur. “When Can a News Organization Lead Public Opinion? Ideology versus Market Forces in Decisions to Make News.” Public Choice 113, no. 1–2 (2002): 127–52.Google Scholar
Camrose, Viscount. British Newspapers and Their Controllers. London: Cassel and Company Limited, 1947.Google Scholar
Chalaby, Jean K. “Twenty Years of Contrast: The French and British Press During the Interwar Period.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie/European Journal of Sociology 37, no. 1 (1996): 143–59.Google Scholar
Cockett, Richard. Twilight of Truth: Chamberlain, Appeasement, and the Manipulation of the Press. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989.Google Scholar
François, Dubasque,. Jean Hennessy (1874–1944). Argent et réseaux au service d'une nouvelle République. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008.Google Scholar
Dullin, Sabine. Des Hommes d'influence, les ambassadeurs de Staline, 1930–1939. Paris: Payot, 2001.Google Scholar
Alexander, Dyck, and Zingales, Luigi. “Private Benefits of Control: An International Comparison.” The Journal of Finance 59, no. 2 (2004): 537–600.Google Scholar
Matthew, Ellman, and Germano, Fabrizio. “What Do the Papers Sell? A Model of Advertising and Media Bias.” Economic Journal 119, no. 537 (2009): 680–704.Google Scholar
Eveno, Patrick. L'argent de la presse française. Paris: Editions du CHTS, 2003.Google Scholar
Eveno, Patrick. “Presse d'influence ou d'information?” Lesechos.fr, 22 June 2007.Google Scholar
Matthew, Gentzkow, Glaeser, Edward L. and Goldin, Claudia. “The Rise of the Fourth Estate: How Newspapers Became Informative and Why It Mattered.” In Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's History, edited by Glaeser, E. and Goldin, C. 187–230. Chicago: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006.Google Scholar
Hautcoeur, Pierre-Cyrille, and Le Bris, David. “A Challenge to Triumphant Optimists? A Blue Chips Index for the Paris Stock-Exchange (1854–2007).” Financial History Review 17, no. 2 (2010): 141–83.Google Scholar
Herman, John. The Paris Embassy of Sir Eric Phipps; Anglo-French Relations and the Foreign Office, 1937–1939. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Horner, Melchior. “The Value of the Corporate Voting Right: Evidence from Switzerland.” Journal of Banking and Finance 12, no. 1 (1988): 69–84.Google Scholar
INSEE. Annuaire statistique 1946, Volume 57. Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1947.Google Scholar
Jeanneney, Jean-Noël. François de Wendel en république, L'argent et le pouvoir 1914–1940. Paris: Seuil, 1976.Google Scholar
Jeanneney, Jean-Noël. L'argent caché, Milieux d'affaires et pouvoirs politiques dans la France du XXè siècle. Paris: Fayard and Points Seuil, 1984 [1981].Google Scholar
Jensen, Michael C. “The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control System.” The Journal of Finance (48), no. 3 (1993): 831–80.Google Scholar
Kérillis, Henri de. Français, voici la vérité. New York: Éditions de la Maison française, Incorporated, 1942.Google Scholar
Kitsikis, Dimitri. “Les Rapports du Temps avec le gouvernement grec dans l'Entre-deux-guerres.” Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 15, no. 3 (1968): 512–34.Google Scholar
Koestler, Arthur. Scum of the Earth. London: V. Gollancz, 1941.Google Scholar
Kupferman, Fred. “François Coty: journaliste et homme politique.” Unpublished Ph.D. diss., Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, 1965.Google Scholar
Kupferman, Fred, and Machefer, Pierre. “Presse et politique dans les années trente: le cas du Petit journal.” Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 22, no. 1 (1975): 7–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacroix-Riz, Annie. Le choix de la défaite. Les élites françaises dans les années 1930. Paris: Armand Colin, 2006.Google Scholar
Lazareff, Pierre. Deadline: The Behind the Scenes Story of the Last Decade in France. New York: Random House, 1942.Google Scholar
Lease, Ronald C. McConnell, John J. and Mikkelson, Wayne H.. “The Market Value of Control in Publicly Traded Corporations.” Journal of Financial Economics (11), no. 1 (1983): 439–71.Google Scholar
Lefébure, Antoine. Havas. Les arcanes du pouvoir. Paris: Grasset, 1992.Google Scholar
Leveson, Brian. An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices, and Ethics of the Press: Report, The Stationery Office. 4 volumes. London: The Stationery Office, 2012.Google Scholar
Levy, Haim. “Economic Evaluation of Voting Power of Common Stock.” The Journal of Finance 38, no. 1 (1982): 79–93.Google Scholar
Charles, Lyon-Caen, and Renault, Louis. Traité de droit commercial, 2 édition. Paris: F. Pinchon, 1929.Google Scholar
McMillan, John, and Pablo, Zoido. “How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 4 (2004): 69–92.Google Scholar
Megginson, William L. “Restricted Voting Stock, Acquisition Premiums, and the Market Value of Corporate Control.” The Financial Review 25, no. 2 (1990): 175–98.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Brian R. International Historical Statistics Europe, 1750–1988, 3rd edition. New York: Stockton Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullainathan, Sendhil, and Shleifer, Andrei, “The Market for News” The American Economic Review (95), no. 4 (2005): 1031–53.Google Scholar
National Bureau of Economic Research. Macrohistory Database Series from France, http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/contents/fr.html.Google Scholar
Nenova, Tatiana, “The Value of Corporate Voting Rights and Control: A Cross-Country Analysis.” Journal of Financial Economics (68), no. 3 (2001): 325–51.Google Scholar
Percerou, Jean. Traité de droit commercial. Paris: Rousseau et Cie, 1931.Google Scholar
Pinsolle, Dominique. Le Matin. Une presse d'argent et de chantage (1884–1944). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2012.Google Scholar
Political and Economic Planning Press Group. Report on the British press, a survey of its current operations and problems with special reference to national newspapers and their part in public affairs. London: PEP, 1938.Google Scholar
Andrea, Prat, and Strömberg, David, “The Political Economy of Mass Media.” Mimeo, London School of Economics, 2011.Google Scholar
Chris, Robinson, and White, Alan. “Empirical Evidence on the Relative Valuation of Voting and Restricted Shares.” Canadian Journal of Administrative Science 7, no. 4 (1990): 9–18.Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the Press. Report. London: HMSO, 1949.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, William D. Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since the Industrial Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Rydqvist, Kristian. “Empirical Investigation of the Voting Premium.” Working Paper 35, Northwestern University, 1987.Google Scholar
Taylor, Alan Percivale, John. “Northcliffe and Dawson.” In Rumours of Wars, 167–72. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952.Google Scholar
The History of The Times. Volume IV: The 150th Anniversary and Beyond (Part I and II). London: The Office of The Times, 1952.Google Scholar
Werth, Alexander. The Twilight of France, 1933–1940, London and New York: Harper Brothers, 1942.Google Scholar
Williams, Kevin. Read All About It! A History of the British Newspaper. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010.Google Scholar
Zingales, Luigi. “The Value of the Voting Right: A Study of the Milan Stock Exchange Experience.” The Review of Financial Studies (7), no. 1 (1994): 125–48.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Bignon and Flandreau supplementary material

Appendix

Download Bignon and Flandreau supplementary material(File)
File 104.4 KB