A good day to bury bad news

The dead trees agree that it was a good day for Blair to bury bad news.
What they don't say is that Friday is usually a good day to do so, because people are in a good mood - and so more forgiving - and because the approaching weekend distracts them.
There's evidence in the stock market for both propositions.
There's general agreement that the market does better on Fridays than at the start of the week. This paper (pdf) found that between 1897 and 1986 the Dow Jones index did twice as well on average on Fridays as on the previous three days, and actually fell the average Monday.
This is consistent with investors feeling cheerful at the end of the week, and miserable at the start.
And this paper says:

Weekends distract investor attention temporarily...Firms appear to respond to investor distraction by releasing worse announcements on Friday.

All this suggests governments should prefer bad news to appear in Friday's papers.
Governments have for years exploited one seasonal pattern in our moods; why do you think general elections are so often called in May, a time of the year when people are most cheerful? So why shouldn't they exploit another?

Comments

[Gracchi]

Classic article. Really good.

[chris]

Aww shucks, thanks.

[cityunslicker]

Why May for elections....

June July August - people on holiday
Sept - holiday / kids back to school
Oct - always a possibility, may rain on polling day
NoV - wet or cold
Dec - Xmas
Jan - Cold
Feb- Cold
March - Wet
April - Wet

So you get to May, not wet and few people on hols.