THE SHEET IS GOOD FOR YOU (EVEN IF YOU HATE IT)
From Bodine’s desk …
The Sheet is good for your bottom line
A study released in May concludes that when a small town loses its newspaper, the town often suffers financially as a result.
“Financing Dies in Darkness? The Impact of Newspaper Closures on Public Finance” written by economists from Notre Dame and University of Illinois at Chicago outlines direct correlation between newspapers and borrowing costs.
“Following a newspaper closure, we find municipal borrowing costs increase by 5 to 11 basis points in the long run. Identification tests illustrate that these results are not being driven by deteriorating local economic conditions. The loss of monitoring that results from newspaper closures is associated with increased government inefficiencies, including higher likelihoods of costly advance refundings and negotiated issues, and higher government wages, employees, and tax revenues.”
