IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mar/magkse/202017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Google It Up! A Google Trends-based analysis of COVID-19 outbreak in Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammad Reza Farzanegan

    (Philipps-University Marburg)

  • Mehdi Feizi

    (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad)

  • Saeed Malek Sadati

    (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad)

Abstract

Soon after the first identified COVID-19 cases in Iran, the spread of the new Coronavirus has affected almost all its provinces. In the absence of credible data on people's unfiltered concerns and needs, especially in developing countries, Google search data is a reliable source that truthfully captures the public sentiment. This study examines the within province changes of confirmed cases of Corona across Iranian provinces from 19 Feb. 2020 to 9 March 2020. Using real-time Google Trends data, panel fixed effects, and GMM regression estimations, we show a robust negative association between the intensity of search for disinfection methods and materials in the past and current confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus. In addition, we find a positive and robust association between the intensity of the searches for symptoms of Corona and the number of confirmed cases within the Iranian provinces. These findings are robust to control for province and period fixed effects, province-specific time trends, and lag of confirmed cases. Our results show how not only prevention could hinder affection in an epidemic disease but also prophecies, shaped by individual concerns and reflected in Google search queries, might not be self-fulfilling.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammad Reza Farzanegan & Mehdi Feizi & Saeed Malek Sadati, 2020. "Google It Up! A Google Trends-based analysis of COVID-19 outbreak in Iran," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202017, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    • Handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:202017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb02/makro/forschung/magkspapers/paper_2020/17-2020_farzanegan.pdf
    File Function: First 202017
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    2. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    3. Hyunyoung Choi & Hal Varian, 2012. "Predicting the Present with Google Trends," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 2-9, June.
    4. Emmanuel Sirimal Silva & Hossein Hassani & Dag Øivind Madsen & Liz Gee, 2019. "Googling Fashion: Forecasting Fashion Consumer Behaviour Using Google Trends," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-23, April.
    5. Yu, Lean & Zhao, Yaqing & Tang, Ling & Yang, Zebin, 2019. "Online big data-driven oil consumption forecasting with Google trends," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 213-223.
    6. Enrico di Bella & Lucia Leporatti & Filomena Maggino, 2018. "Big Data and Social Indicators: Actual Trends and New Perspectives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 869-878, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Baltagi, Badi H. & Demetriades, Panicos O. & Law, Siong Hook, 2009. "Financial development and openness: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 285-296, July.
    9. Yue Teng & Dehua Bi & Guigang Xie & Yuan Jin & Yong Huang & Baihan Lin & Xiaoping An & Dan Feng & Yigang Tong, 2017. "Dynamic Forecasting of Zika Epidemics Using Google Trends," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, January.
    10. Chris Hand & Guy Judge, 2012. "Searching for the picture: forecasting UK cinema admissions using Google Trends data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(11), pages 1051-1055, July.
    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. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2020. "Ageing Society and SARS-CoV-2 Mortality: Does the Healthcare Absorptive Capacity Matter?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Tom Coupé, 2022. "Who is the most sought‐after economist? Ranking economists using Google Trends," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(2), pages 611-642, October.

    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. Zhongchen Song & Tom Coupé, 2023. "Predicting Chinese consumption series with Baidu," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 429-463, July.
    2. 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.
    3. Samuel Fosu & Albert Danso & Henry Agyei-Boapeah & Collins G. Ntim & Emmanuel Adegbite, 2020. "Credit information sharing and loan default in developing countries: the moderating effect of banking market concentration and national governance quality," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 55-103, July.
    4. Olufemi Adewale Aluko & Oladapo Fapetu & Julius Oyebanji Ibitoye, 2021. "Do Openness and Democracy Deepen Banking Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 22(2), pages 279-289, April.
    5. Sutirtha Bagchi & Matthew J. Fagerstrom, 2023. "Wealth inequality and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 89-136, October.
    6. Yongfu Huang, 2011. "Private investment and financial development in a globalized world," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 43-56, August.
    7. Jean-Pierre Allegret & Sana Azzabi, 2014. "Intégration financière internationale et croissance économique dans les pays émergents et en développement : le canal du développement financier," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 22(3), pages 27-68.
    8. Yakubu Awudu Sare & Eric Evans Osei Opoku & Muazu Ibrahim & Isaac Koomson, 2019. "Financial sector development convergence in Africa: Evidence from bank- and market-based measures," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 8(4), pages 166-175.
    9. Donou-Adonsou, Ficawoyi & Sylwester, Kevin, 2017. "Growth effect of banks and microfinance: Evidence from developing countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 44-56.
    10. Nguyen, Yen Ngoc & Brown, Kym & Skully, Michael, 2019. "Impact of finance on growth: Does it vary with development levels or cyclical conditions?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1195-1209.
    11. Ehigiamusoe, Kizito Uyi & Vinitha Guptan & Narayanan, Suresh, 2019. "The effects of income and inflation on financial development: Evidence from heterogeneous panels," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-11, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    12. Nasr G. Elbahnasawy & Michael A. Ellis, 2016. "Economic Structure And Seigniorage: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 940-965, April.
    13. Dennis Boahene Osei & Yakubu Awudu Sare & Muazu Ibrahim, 2019. "On the determinants of trade openness in low- and lower–middle-income countries in Africa: how important is economic growth?," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    14. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    15. Ahmad, Mahyudin, 2016. "Middle income trap and income inequality: Empirical evidence on the distributional effect of economic liberalization and political regime," MPRA Paper 76437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Abay,Kibrom A. & Hirfrfot,Kibrom Tafere & Woldemichael,Andinet, 2020. "Winners and Losers from COVID-19 : Global Evidence from Google Search," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9268, The World Bank.
    17. Jakhongir Kakhkharov & Nicholas Rohde, 2020. "Remittances and financial development in transition economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 731-763, August.
    18. Stephen L. France & Yuying Shi, 2017. "Aggregating Google Trends: Multivariate Testing and Analysis," Papers 1712.03152, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2018.
    19. Gordon Burtch & Anindya Ghose & Sunil Wattal, 2013. "An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Contribution Patterns in Crowd-Funded Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 499-519, September.
    20. Grigoli, Francesco & Mills, Zachary & Verhoeven, Marijn & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2012. "MTEFs and fiscal performance: panel data evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6186, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Google Trends; COVID-19; Iran; epidemic disease;
    All these keywords.

    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:mar:magkse:202017. 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: Bernd Hayo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vamarde.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.