IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v237y2024ics0165176524001216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer sentiment: The influence of social media

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Zhengfa
  • Keasey, Kevin
  • Lambrinoudakis, Costas
  • Mascia, Danilo V.

Abstract

Since the late 1940s consumer sentiment has been used by policy makers, companies and investors as an indicator of economic mood. However, the rapid growth and spread of social media has changed the landscape of the consumer. By using a unique hand-collected dataset of more than 11 million influencers’ posts, we test whether consumer sentiment is related to social media influencer sentiment. We find consumer sentiment, after testing for endogeneity concerns, is robustly related to different categories of influencer sentiment across different groupings of individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Zhengfa & Keasey, Kevin & Lambrinoudakis, Costas & Mascia, Danilo V., 2024. "Consumer sentiment: The influence of social media," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:237:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524001216
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111638
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176524001216
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111638?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arteaga-Garavito, Maria Jose & Croce, Mariano M. & Farroni, Paolo & Wolfskeil, Isabella, 2024. "When the markets get CO.V.I.D: COntagion, Viruses, and Information Diffusion," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Richard Curtin, 2019. "Consumer expectations: a new paradigm," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 199-210, October.
    3. Öztürk, B. & Stokman, A.C.J., 2019. "Animal spirits and household spending in Europe and the US," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    4. Hu, Zhongchen, 2022. "Social interactions and households’ flood insurance decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 414-432.
    5. Öztürk, B. & Stokman, A.C.J., 2019. "Animal spirits and household spending in Europe and the US," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    6. Riley Wilson, 2022. "The Impact of Social Networks on EITC Claiming Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(5), pages 929-945, December.
    7. Michael Bailey & Ruiqing Cao & Theresa Kuchler & Johannes Stroebel, 2018. "The Economic Effects of Social Networks: Evidence from the Housing Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(6), pages 2224-2276.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Iwona Kaczmarek & Adam Iwaniak & Grzegorz Chrobak & Jan K. Kazak, 2025. "Integrating media sentiment with traditional economic indicators: a study on PMI, CCI, and employment during COVID-19 period in Poland," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 1-23, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giang Nguyen & My Nguyen & Anh Viet Pham & Man Duy Marty Pham, 2023. "Navigating investment decisions with social connectedness : Implications for venture capital," Post-Print hal-04325756, HAL.
    2. Kariya, Ankitkumar & Shekhawat, Chhavi, 2024. "Distance lending & social connectedness," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Hector H. Sandoval & Anita N. Walsh, 2024. "Sentiments and spending intentions: Evidence from Florida," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(3), pages 1046-1073, July.
    4. Mayer, Maximilian, 2023. "Climate change concerns and information spillovers from socially-connected friends," IWH Discussion Papers 2/2023, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    5. Hector H. Sandoval & Anita N. Walsh, 2021. "The role of consumer confidence in forecasting consumption, evidence from Florida," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(2), pages 757-788, October.
    6. Xu, Xin & Xu, Xiaoguang, 2023. "Monetary policy transmission modeling and policy responses," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Nguyen, Giang & Nguyen, My & Pham, Anh Viet & Pham, Man Duy (Marty), 2023. "Navigating investment decisions with social connectedness: Implications for venture capital," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    8. Yilan Xu & Sébastien Box‐Couillard, 2024. "Social learning about climate risks," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(3), pages 1172-1191, July.
    9. Theresa Kuchler & Monika Piazzesi & Johannes Stroebel, 2022. "Housing Market Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 9665, CESifo.
    10. Ulrike Malmendier & Alexandra Steiny Wellsjo, 2024. "Rent or Buy? Inflation Experiences and Homeownership within and across Countries," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 1977-2023, June.
    11. Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, 2021. "In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 541-583.
    12. Felici, Marco & Kenny, Geoff & Friz, Roberta, 2023. "Consumer savings behaviour at low and negative interest rates," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    13. Diemer, Andreas & Regan, Tanner, 2022. "No inventor is an island: Social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    14. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    15. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    16. Rai, Varun Kumar & Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Lal, Madan, 2024. "COVID-19 literature in Elsevier finance journal ecosystem," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    17. Georgij Alekseev & Safaa Amer & Manasa Gopal & Theresa Kuchler & J. W. Schneider & Johannes Stroebel & Nils Wernerfelt, 2023. "The Effects of COVID-19 on U.S. Small Businesses: Evidence from Owners, Managers, and Employees," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 7-24, January.
    18. Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2022. "Game on: Social networks and markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1097-1119.
    19. Goldfayn-Frank, Olga & Kieren, Pascal & Trautmann, Stefan, 2024. "A Choice-Based Approach to the Measurement of Inflation Expectations," Working Papers 0742, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    20. Yongwook Paik & Christos A. Makridis, 2023. "The social value of a ridesharing platform: a hedonic pricing approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2125-2150, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer sentiment; Social media; Influencers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:237:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524001216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.