IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v58y2023ipas1544612323006943.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Platania, Federico
  • Toscano Hernandez, Celina
  • Moreno, Manuel
  • Appio, Francesco

Abstract

We examine the impact of public attention on the market during the COVID-19 outbreak. We use Google search engine to measure the level of public attention towards pandemic-related topics and analyze the effect on the 11 S&P sectors. Our results indicate that pandemic-related public attention has a substantial and adverse impact on the market. Furthermore, as governments often increase and announce stimulus packages during periods of heightened uncertainty and negative public attention, our findings indicate that higher levels of economic policy uncertainty, which are often accompanied by financial incentive announcements, can mitigate the negative impact of public attention.

Suggested Citation

  • Platania, Federico & Toscano Hernandez, Celina & Moreno, Manuel & Appio, Francesco, 2023. "The impact of public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:58:y:2023:i:pa:s1544612323006943
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2023.104322
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612323006943
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2023.104322?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhang, Dayong & Hu, Min & Ji, Qiang, 2020. "Financial markets under the global pandemic of COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    2. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    3. Vozlyublennaia, Nadia, 2014. "Investor attention, index performance, and return predictability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 17-35.
    4. I. El Ouadghiri & Jonathan Peillex, 2018. "Public Attention to ``Islamic Terrorism'' and Stock Market Returns," Post-Print hal-03680603, HAL.
    5. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Phan, Dinh Hoang Bach & Liu, Guangqiang, 2021. "COVID-19 lockdowns, stimulus packages, travel bans, and stock returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    6. Jens Newig, 2004. "Public Attention, Political Action: the Example of Environmental Regulation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 16(2), pages 149-190, May.
    7. Aouadi, Amal & Arouri, Mohamed & Teulon, Frédéric, 2013. "Investor attention and stock market activity: Evidence from France," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 674-681.
    8. El Ouadghiri, Imane & Peillex, Jonathan, 2018. "Public attention to “Islamic terrorism” and stock market returns," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 936-946.
    9. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    10. Platania, Federico & Hernandez, C. Toscano & Arreola, Fernanda, 2022. "Social media communication during natural disasters and the impact on the agricultural market," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    12. Wang, Gang-Jin & Xie, Chi & Wen, Danyan & Zhao, Longfeng, 2019. "When Bitcoin meets economic policy uncertainty (EPU): Measuring risk spillover effect from EPU to Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    13. Dinh Hoang Bach Phan & Paresh Kumar Narayan, 2020. "Country Responses and the Reaction of the Stock Market to COVID-19—a Preliminary Exposition," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 2138-2150, August.
    14. Raphael H Heiberger, 2015. "Collective Attention and Stock Prices: Evidence from Google Trends Data on Standard and Poor's 100," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-14, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Smales, L.A., 2021. "Investor attention and global market returns during the COVID-19 crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Xiao, Jihong & Wang, Yudong, 2021. "Investor attention and oil market volatility: Does economic policy uncertainty matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. Gu, Tiantian & Venkateswaran, Anand & Erath, Marc, 2023. "Impact of fiscal stimulus on volatility: A cross-country analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. Aharon, David Y. & Qadan, Mahmoud, 2018. "What drives the demand for information in the commodity market?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 532-543.
    5. Han, Liyan & Xu, Yang & Yin, Libo, 2018. "Does investor attention matter? The attention-return relationships in FX markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 644-660.
    6. Hervé, Fabrice & Zouaoui, Mohamed & Belvaux, Bertrand, 2019. "Noise traders and smart money: Evidence from online searches," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 141-149.
    7. Ronald MacDonald & Xuxin Mao, 2015. "An Alternative way of Predicting the Outcome of the Scottish Independence Referendum: The Information in the Ether," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-69, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    8. Papadamou, Stephanos & Fassas, Athanasios P. & Kenourgios, Dimitris & Dimitriou, Dimitrios, 2023. "Effects of the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic on implied stock market volatility: International evidence using a google trend measure," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    9. Ronald MacDonald & Xuxin Mao, "undated". "An Alternative way of predicting the putcome of the Scottish Independence Referendum: the information in the Ether," Working Papers 2015_05, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    10. Zheng, Yan & Wen, Fenghua & Deng, Hanshi & Zeng, Aiqing, 2022. "The relationship between carbon market attention and the EU CET market: Evidence from different market conditions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    11. Padhan, Rakesh & Prabheesh, K.P., 2021. "The economics of COVID-19 pandemic: A survey," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 220-237.
    12. Shah, Sayar Ahmad & Garg, Bhavesh, 2023. "Testing policy effectiveness during COVID-19: An NK-DSGE analysis," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Bai, Lan & Wei, Yu & Wei, Guiwu & Li, Xiafei & Zhang, Songyun, 2021. "Infectious disease pandemic and permanent volatility of international stock markets: A long-term perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    14. Chaiyuth Padungsaksawasdi & Sirimon Treepongkaruna & Robert Brooks, 2019. "Investor Attention and Stock Market Activities: New Evidence from Panel Data," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-19, June.
    15. Zhou, Siwen, 2018. "Exploring the Driving Forces of the Bitcoin Exchange Rate Dynamics: An EGARCH Approach," MPRA Paper 89445, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Qadan, Mahmoud & Nama, Hazar, 2018. "Investor sentiment and the price of oil," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 42-58.
    17. Tariq Aziz & Valeed Ahmad Ansari, 2021. "How Does Google Search Affect the Stock Market? Evidence from Indian Companies," Vision, , vol. 25(2), pages 224-232, June.
    18. El Ouadghiri, Imane & Guesmi, Khaled & Peillex, Jonathan & Ziegler, Andreas, 2021. "Public Attention to Environmental Issues and Stock Market Returns," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    19. Liu, Zhifeng & Huynh, Toan Luu Duc & Dai, Peng-Fei, 2021. "The impact of COVID-19 on the stock market crash risk in China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    20. Szczygielski, Jan Jakub & Charteris, Ailie & Bwanya, Princess Rutendo & Brzeszczyński, Janusz, 2023. "Which COVID-19 information really impacts stock markets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Uncertainty; Public attention; Digital technologies; Google;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    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:eee:finlet:v:58:y:2023:i:pa:s1544612323006943. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    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.