Text as Data: Real-time Measurement of Economic Welfare

Abstract: Economists are showing increasing interest in the use of text as an input to economic research. Here, we analyse online text to construct a real time metric of welfare. For purposes of description, we call it the Feel Good Factor (FGF). The particular example used to illustrate the concept is confined to data from the London area, but the methodology is readily generalisable to other geographical areas. The FGF illustrates the use of online data to create a measure of welfare which is not based, as GDP is, on value added in a market-oriented economy. There is already a large literature which measures wellbeing/happiness. But this relies on conventional survey approaches, and hence on the stated preferences of respondents. In unstructured online media text, users reveal their emotions in ways analogous to the principle of revealed preference in consumer demand theory. The analysis of online media offers further advantages over conventional survey-based measures of sentiment or well-being. It can be carried out in real time rather than with the lags which are involved in survey approaches. In addition, it is very much cheaper.