IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp1036.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring Regional Inequality by Internet Car Price Advertisements: Evidence for Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Konstantin A. Kholodilin
  • Boriss Siliverstovs

Abstract

We suggest to use Internet car sale price advertisements for measuring economic inequality between and within German regions. Our estimates of regional income levels and Gini indices based on advertisements are highly, positively correlated with the official figures. This implies that the observed car prices can serve as a reasonably good proxy for income levels. In contrast to the traditional measures, our data can be fast and inexpensively retrieved from the web, and more importantly allow to estimate Gini indices at the NUTS2 level-something that never has been done before. Our approach to measuring regional inequality is a useful alternative source of information that could complement officially available measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2010. "Measuring Regional Inequality by Internet Car Price Advertisements: Evidence for Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1036, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.358566.de/dp1036.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nikolaos Askitas & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2009. "Google Econometrics and Unemployment Forecasting," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 55(2), pages 107-120.
    2. Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Maximilian Podstawski & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2010. "Do Google Searches Help in Nowcasting Private Consumption?: A Real-Time Evidence for the US," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 997, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. D'Amuri, Francesco & Marcucci, Juri, 2009. "‘Google it!’ Forecasting the US unemployment rate with a Google job search index," ISER Working Paper Series 2009-32, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Peter Krause & Andrea Schäfer, 2005. "Verteilung von Vermögen und Einkommen in Deutschland: große Unterschiede nach Geschlecht und Alter," DIW Wochenbericht, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 72(11), pages 199-207.
    5. Konstantin Kholodilin & Maximilian Podstawski & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2010. "Do Google Searches Help in Nowcasting Private Consumption?," KOF Working papers 10-256, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    6. Jeremy Ginsberg & Matthew H. Mohebbi & Rajan S. Patel & Lynnette Brammer & Mark S. Smolinski & Larry Brilliant, 2009. "Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data," Nature, Nature, vol. 457(7232), pages 1012-1014, February.
    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. Boriss Siliverstovs & Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Vyacheslav Dombrovsky, 2014. "Using Personal Car Register for Measuring Economic Inequality in Countries with a Large Share of Shadow Economy: Evidence for Latvia," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 948-966, December.
    2. David Iselin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2016. "Using newspapers for tracking the business cycle: a comparative study for Germany and Switzerland," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(12), pages 1103-1118, March.
    3. David Iselin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2013. "Using Newspapers for Tracking the Business Cycle," KOF Working papers 13-337, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.

    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. Jianchun Fang & Wanshan Wu & Zhou Lu & Eunho Cho, 2019. "Using Baidu Index To Nowcast Mobile Phone Sales In China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 83-96, March.
    2. Fondeur, Y. & Karamé, F., 2013. "Can Google data help predict French youth unemployment?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 117-125.
    3. Gomes, Pedro & Taamouti, Abderrahim, 2016. "In search of the determinants of European asset market comovements," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 103-117.
    4. Chien-jung Ting & Yi-Long Hsiao, 2022. "Nowcasting the GDP in Taiwan and the Real-Time Tourism Data," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(3), pages 1-2.
    5. Chien-jung Ting & Yi-Long Hsiao & Rui-jun Su, 2022. "Application of the Real-Time Tourism Data in Nowcasting the Service Consumption in Taiwan," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(4), pages 1-4.
    6. David Iselin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2013. "Using Newspapers for Tracking the Business Cycle," KOF Working papers 13-337, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    7. Vicente, María Rosalía & López-Menéndez, Ana J. & Pérez, Rigoberto, 2015. "Forecasting unemployment with internet search data: Does it help to improve predictions when job destruction is skyrocketing?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 132-139.
    8. David Iselin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2013. "Mit Zeitungen Konjunkturprognosen erstellen: Eine Vergleichsstudie für die Schweiz und Deutschland," KOF Analysen, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, vol. 7(3), pages 104-117, September.
    9. Nuno Barreira & Pedro Godinho & Paulo Melo, 2013. "Nowcasting unemployment rate and new car sales in south-western Europe with Google Trends," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 129-165, November.
    10. Tong Liu & Guojun He & Alexis Lau, 2018. "Avoidance behavior against air pollution: evidence from online search indices for anti-PM2.5 masks and air filters in Chinese cities," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(2), pages 325-363, April.
    11. Karaman Örsal, Deniz Dilan, 2021. "Onlinedaten und Konsumentscheidungen: Voraussagen anhand von Daten aus Social Media und Suchmaschinen," Edition HWWI: Chapters, in: Straubhaar, Thomas (ed.), Neuvermessung der Datenökonomie, volume 6, pages 157-172, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    12. Smith, Geoffrey Peter, 2012. "Google Internet search activity and volatility prediction in the market for foreign currency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 103-110.
    13. Yang, Xin & Pan, Bing & Evans, James A. & Lv, Benfu, 2015. "Forecasting Chinese tourist volume with search engine data," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 386-397.
    14. Nikolaos Askitas & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2015. "The internet as a data source for advancement in social sciences," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(1), pages 2-12, April.
    15. Cedric Mbanga & Ali F. Darrat & Jung Chul Park, 2019. "Investor sentiment and aggregate stock returns: the role of investor attention," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 397-428, August.
    16. Jingwen Liu & Peng Zou & Yu Ma, 2022. "The Effect of Air Pollution on Food Preferences," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 410-423, March.
    17. Cristea, R. G., 2020. "Can Alternative Data Improve the Accuracy of Dynamic Factor Model Nowcasts?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 20108, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Chun Li & Jianhua He & Xingwu Duan, 2020. "The Relationship Exploration between Public Migration Attention and Population Migration from a Perspective of Search Query," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-18, April.
    19. Park, Sungjun & Kim, Jinsoo, 2018. "The effect of interest in renewable energy on US household electricity consumption: An analysis using Google Trends data," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 1004-1010.
    20. Olivier Gergaud & Victor Ginsburgh, 2016. "Evaluating the Economic Effects of Cultural Events," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-24, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Car price advertisements; economic inequality; German NUTS1 and NUTS regions; Gini index; Internet;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:diw:diwwpp:dp1036. 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    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.