A large literature studies subjective beliefs about economic facts using unincentivized survey questions. We devise randomized experiments in a representative online survey to investigate whether incentivizing belief accuracy affects stated beliefs about average earnings by professional degree...

The current economic crisis requires fast information to predict economic behavior early, which is difficult at times of structural changes. This paper suggests an innovative new method of using data on internet activity for that purpose. It demonstrates strong correlations between keyword...

Economic hardship is strongly reflected by the housing market. It is the concern of much research, but its analysis is often obstructed by insufficient lagged data. This paper evaluates search intensity for "hardship letter" from Google Insights to detect ensuing mortgage delinquencies. Such...

I create a time series of weekly ratios of Google searches, in the US, on buying and selling in the Real Estate Category of Google Trends. I call this ratio the Google US Housing Market BUSE Index or simply the BUSE index. It expresses the number of "buy"-searches for each "sell"-search which,...

The internet has become an important data source for the Social Sciences because these data are available without lags, can be regarded as involuntary surveys and hence have no observer effect, can be geo-labeled, are available for countries across the globe and can be viewed in continuous time...

On February 20 2015 Irish Premier Enda Kenny confirmed that a "yes-no" referendum on same sex marriage would be held on May 22 of the same year. A yes vote would legalise same sex marriage in Ireland. As the Irish premier put it, the vote was about "tolerance, respect and sensitivity". The...

We use data from Google Trends to predict the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on future births in the United States. First, we show that periods of above-normal search volume for Google keywords relating to conception and pregnancy in US states are associated with higher numbers of births in the...

We analyze the consequences of counseling provided to job seekers in a standard job search and matching model. It turns out that neglecting equilibrium effects induced by counseling can lead to wrong conclusions. In particular, counseling can increase steady state unemployment although counseled...

To reduce unemployment targeted hiring subsidies for long-term unemployed are often recommended. To explore their effect on employment and wages, we devise a model with two types of unemployed and two methods of search, a public employment service (PES) and random search. The eligibility of a...

Labor market programs may affect unemployed individuals' behavior before they enroll. Such ex ante effects are hard to identify without model assumptions. We develop a novel method that relates self-reported perceived treatment rates and job-search behavioral outcomes, like the reservation wage,...