Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Index
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Submitted by Econbrowser
Dow Jones has begun publication of a new Economic Sentiment Index, which is based on a text mining analysis of five million news articles referencing the U.S. economy since 1990, rating words such as “recession” and “depression” as negative and “recovery” and “rebound” as positive.
This index doesn’t give us new information on the economy itself, only what reporters are saying about it. Just because lots of people say the same thing doesn’t make it so, unless there’s merit to (1) the wisdom of crowds, or (2) self-fulfilling economic expectations. But in any case, it’s an interesting series.
