Suchergebnisse

Die große Wirtschaftskrise hat bisher nur verhaltene Spuren am Arbeitsmarkt hinterlassen. Angesichts der unsicheren weiteren konjunkturellen Entwicklung, der schlechten Auslastung der Arbeitskräfte in den Unternehmen und der hohen Kurzarbeit erwarten viele Beobachter zum Herbst einen dramatischen Anstieg der Arbeitslosigkeit mit einer baldigen Überschreitung der Vier-Millionen-Grenze. Nach Prognosen unter Verwendung von Google-Internetzugriffsstatistiken bleibt es aber im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahlen in den Sommermonaten August und September aller Voraussicht nach völlig ruhig. Saisonal bedingt geht die Arbeitslosigkeit sogar zurück. Damit verringert sich die Gefahr, dass eine Arbeitslosenzahl von vier Millionen noch in diesem Jahr erreicht werden wird.

"Die große Wirtschaftskrise hat bisher nur verhaltene Spuren am Arbeitsmarkt hinterlassen. Angesichts der unsicheren weiteren konjunkturellen Entwicklung, der schlechten Auslastung der Arbeitskräfte in den Unternehmen und der hohen Kurzarbeit erwarten viele Beobachter zum Herbst einen dramatischen Anstieg der Arbeitslosigkeit mit einer baldigen Überschreitung der Vier-Millionen- Grenze. Nach Prognosen unter Verwendung von Google- Internetzugriffsstatistiken bleibt es aber im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahlen in den Sommermonaten August und September aller Voraussicht nach völlig ruhig. Saisonal bedingt geht die Arbeitslosigkeit sogar zurück. Damit wird die Gefahr, dass eine Arbeitslosenzahl von vier Millionen in diesem Jahr erreicht wird, weiter unwahrscheinlicher" (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

To date, the Great Recession has only had a mild impact on the German labor market. In view of the uncertainties surrounding future economic growth, the low utilization of the workforce in firms, and the prevalence of working hour reductions, many observers are anticipating a dramatic rise in unemployment in the fall, with the total number of unemployed rapidly surpassing the four-million mark. Yet according to forecasts based on Google search statistics, in all likelihood the unemployment rate will remain relatively stable in August and through the end of September, when elections for the German Bundestag will be held. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is actually falling. Given this fact, the danger that the total number of unemployed will exceed four million during this year seems increasingly unlikely.

Traffic jams are an important problem both on an individual and on a societal level and much research has been done on trying to explain their emergence. The mainstream approach to road traffic monitoring is based on crowdsourcing roaming GPS devices such as cars or cell phones. These systems are expectedly able to deliver good results in reflecting the immediate present. To my knowledge there is as yet no system which offers advance notice on road conditions. Google Search intensity for the German word stau (i.e. traffic jam) peaks 2 hours ahead of the number of traffic jam reports as reported by the ADAC, a well known German automobile club and the largest of its kind in Europe. This is true both in the morning (7 am to 9 am) and in the evening (5 pm to 7 pm). I propose such searches as a way of forecasting road conditions. The main result of this paper is that after controlling for time of day and day of week effects we can still explain a significant portion of the variation of the number of traffic jam reports with Google Trends and we can thus explain well over 80% of the variation of road conditions using Google search activity. A one percent increase in Google stau searches implies a .4 percent increase of traffic jams. Our paper is a proof of concept that aggregate, timely delivered behavioural data can help fine tune modern societies.

In a bold and risky political move the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras called for a referendum on June 27 2015 quitting ongoing negotiations with Greece's creditors in Brussels. The referendum framed as a yes or no question asked the Greek voters to decide whether or not they approve or reject the latest take-it-or-leave-it proposal for "program con- tinuation" by Greece's creditors. What followed was a chaotic week leading to the referendum with intense campaigning by the two camps. Due to tense debates and increasing polarisation it became increasingly impossible to rely on traditional polling. Even the first exit polls (performed by phone on Sunday evening) could only see a marginal lead for one or the other vote at different times. Quite possibly people were jumping party lines and were unwilling to reveal their preferences. Using Google Trends I could tap into voters' true and unbiased revealed preferences and nowcast hourly what the ratio of the No vote to the Yes vote is and called an over 60% No vote well ahead of the closing of the voting urns. In this paper I document this nowcasting exercise.

This essay sketches technical and non-technical issues around persistent identifiers (henceforth PIs) in a manner which makes no attempt to be complete. Our goal is to rescue the core notions from the obscurity which detail and completeness burdens them with. A reader willing to entertain the idea of their necessity should be able to cut to the chase and follow a more complex and involved debate after reading this. Our hope is that in isolating the core issues we will enable a more founded discussion of the social and political issues involved in PIs.

"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 searches and unemployment rates using monthly German data and exhibits a strong potential for the method used." [author's abstract]