Introduction

Image Source: Alexander Schimmeck at https://unsplash.com/photos/AoI2E_7El1w

This project will analyze the relationship between US economic trends and related google searches. Others have analyzed the relationship between online searches and a range of phenomena, including: Covid Cases, meth-related crime, and US elections.

This project will analyze the following questions:

1. Are google searches for the term unemployment related over time to US unemployment data?
2. Are searches for the word gas or cheap gas related over time to changes in gas prices?
3. Are searches for food stamps or related terms correlated with monthly data on food stamp usage?
4. Are there online searches that correlate with the consumer confidence index?
5. Are there certain times of year when people are more likely to search for economic topics?
6. Are online searches for these topics leading or lagging indicators for formal economic data?
7. What is the relationship between unemployment and food stamp usage? Has it changed over time? I would predict that unemployment data would lead food stamp data.
8. To what extent is 2020 an anomaly in the relationship among google searches and economic indicators? Do previous relationships hold in 2020?
9. How successful are forecasting methods on google trends data?
10. Are some economic google trends stationary over time?