In Tandem or Out of Sync? Academic Economics Research and Public Policy Measures

This paper investigates whether academic research attention to certain public policy related measures (including unemployment, inflation, bankruptcies, and GDP) is correlated with empirical measurements of the measures themselves. In other words, when unemployment rises, does academic research attention to the matter increase? Or do economists pursue research interests relatively uninfluenced by policy shocks on the ground, at least in the short run? Text-analysis based results imply that economic attention to key public policy terms does correlate with empirical movements of the terms in most instances, however, the stronger and more consistent correlation is between use of public policy terms in the academic literature and discussion of them by the broader public.