IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0083147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Books Average Previous Decade of Economic Misery

Author

Listed:
  • R Alexander Bentley
  • Alberto Acerbi
  • Paul Ormerod
  • Vasileios Lampos

Abstract

For the 20th century since the Depression, we find a strong correlation between a ‘literary misery index’ derived from English language books and a moving average of the previous decade of the annual U.S. economic misery index, which is the sum of inflation and unemployment rates. We find a peak in the goodness of fit at 11 years for the moving average. The fit between the two misery indices holds when using different techniques to measure the literary misery index, and this fit is significantly better than other possible correlations with different emotion indices. To check the robustness of the results, we also analysed books written in German language and obtained very similar correlations with the German economic misery index. The results suggest that millions of books published every year average the authors' shared economic experiences over the past decade.

Suggested Citation

  • R Alexander Bentley & Alberto Acerbi & Paul Ormerod & Vasileios Lampos, 2014. "Books Average Previous Decade of Economic Misery," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-7, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0083147
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083147
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083147&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0083147?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2009. "Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1265-1306.
    2. Bechara, Antoine & Damasio, Antonio R., 2005. "The somatic marker hypothesis: A neural theory of economic decision," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 336-372, August.
    3. George Loewenstein, 2000. "Emotions in Economic Theory and Economic Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 426-432, May.
    4. Romer, Christina, 1986. "Spurious Volatility in Historical Unemployment Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(1), pages 1-37, February.
    5. Hyunyoung Choi & Hal Varian, 2012. "Predicting the Present with Google Trends," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 2-9, June.
    6. P. Ormerod & B. Rosewell & P. Phelps, 2013. "Inflation/unemployment regimes and the instability of the Phillips curve," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(12), pages 1519-1531, April.
    7. Erez Lieberman & Jean-Baptiste Michel & Joe Jackson & Tina Tang & Martin A. Nowak, 2007. "Quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of language," Nature, Nature, vol. 449(7163), pages 713-716, October.
    8. Alberto Acerbi & Vasileios Lampos & Philip Garnett & R Alexander Bentley, 2013. "The Expression of Emotions in 20th Century Books," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-6, March.
    9. Mullins, Daniel A. & Whitehouse, Harvey & Atkinson, Quentin D., 2013. "The role of writing and recordkeeping in the cultural evolution of human cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 141-151.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin D. Horne & Natalie M. Rice & Catherine A. Luther & Damian J. Ruck & Joshua Borycz & Suzie L. Allard & Michael Fitzgerald & Oleg Manaev & Brandon C. Prins & Maureen Taylor & R. Alexander Bentl, 2023. "Generational effects of culture and digital media in former Soviet Republics," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Shuanglong Li & Yunsong Chen & Guangye He, 2019. "Mapping Public Concerns About Class Immobility in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 745-765, July.
    3. Acerbi, Alberto & Sacco, Pier Luigi, 2021. "The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends," OSF Preprints xgqt5, Center for Open Science.
    4. Damian Ruck & R. Alexander Bentley & Alberto Acerbi & Philip Garnett & Daniel J. Hruschka, 2017. "Role Of Neutral Evolution In Word Turnover During Centuries Of English Word Popularity," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(06n07), pages 1-16, September.
    5. Kuhn, Andreas, 2022. "The Times Have Changed: Tracking the Evolution of Gender Norms over Time," IZA Discussion Papers 15621, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Yunsong Chen & Fei Yan & Yi Zhang, 2017. "Local name, global fame: The international visibility of Chinese cities in modern times," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(11), pages 2652-2668, August.
    7. Sakiru Adebola Solarin & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Carmen Lafuente, 2020. "Persistence of the Misery Index in African Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 825-841, February.
    8. Melissa A Wheeler & Melanie J McGrath & Nick Haslam, 2019. "Twentieth century morality: The rise and fall of moral concepts from 1900 to 2007," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-12, February.
    9. Acerbi, Alberto & Sacco, Pier Luigi, 2022. "The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    10. Ludovic Rheault & Kaspar Beelen & Christopher Cochrane & Graeme Hirst, 2016. "Measuring Emotion in Parliamentary Debates with Automated Textual Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-18, December.

    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. Liang Xu & Min Xu & Zehua Jiang & Xin Wen & Yishan Liu & Zaoyi Sun & Hongting Li & Xiuying Qian, 2023. "How have music emotions been described in Google books? Historical trends and corpus differences," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Klaus Wälde & Agnes Moors, 2016. "Current Emotion Research in Economics," Working Papers 1612, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    3. Yunsong Chen & Fei Yan & Yi Zhang, 2017. "Local name, global fame: The international visibility of Chinese cities in modern times," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(11), pages 2652-2668, August.
    4. Ludovic Rheault & Kaspar Beelen & Christopher Cochrane & Graeme Hirst, 2016. "Measuring Emotion in Parliamentary Debates with Automated Textual Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-18, December.
    5. Shelly Lundberg, 2023. "Gender Economics: Dead-Ends and New Opportunities," Research in Labor Economics, in: 50th Celebratory Volume, volume 50, pages 151-189, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Klaus Wälde, 2016. "Emotion Research in Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 5982, CESifo.
    7. Damian Ruck & R. Alexander Bentley & Alberto Acerbi & Philip Garnett & Daniel J. Hruschka, 2017. "Role Of Neutral Evolution In Word Turnover During Centuries Of English Word Popularity," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(06n07), pages 1-16, September.
    8. Frans van Winden & Mirre Stallen & K. Richard Ridderinkhof, 2008. "On the Nature, Modeling, and Neural Bases of Social Ties," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-063/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Voon, Jan P. & Voon, Jan Cham, 2012. "A structural model of consumption: An application to China during the global financial crisis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 284-288.
    10. Carin Huber & Tobias Schlager, 2018. "Testing the risk as feeling and risk as analysis perspective for insurance: the antecedents of purchasing unit-linked life insurance products," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 25-37, March.
    11. Rasch, Carsten & Louviere, Jordan J. & Teichert, Thorsten, 2015. "Using facial EMG and eye tracking to study integral affect in discrete choice experiments," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 32-47.
    12. Hubert, Mirja, 2010. "Does neuroeconomics give new impetus to economic and consumer research?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 812-817, October.
    13. Kliger, Doron & Levy, Ori, 2009. "Theories of choice under risk: Insights from financial markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 330-346, August.
    14. Ronald Bosman & Frans Van Winden, 2010. "Global Risk, Investment and Emotions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(307), pages 451-471, July.
    15. Janina Enachescu & Žiga Puklavec & Christian Martin Bauer & Jerome Olsen & Erich Kirchler & James Alm, 2019. "Incidental Emotions, Integral Emotions, and Decisions to Pay Taxes," Working Papers 1909, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    16. Thomas Leoni, 2011. "Fehlzeitenreport 2011. Krankheits- und unfallbedingte Fehlzeiten in Österreich," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 42691.
    17. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2017. "Optimal Liability when Consumers Mispredict Product Usage," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 202-243.
    18. Mioara, POPESCU, 2015. "Construction Of Economic Indicators Using Internet Searches," Annals of Spiru Haret University, Economic Series, Universitatea Spiru Haret, vol. 6(1), pages 25-31.
    19. Simon G�chter & Arno Riedl, "undated". "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining," IEW - Working Papers 113, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Elira Kuka, 2020. "Quantifying the Benefits of Social Insurance: Unemployment Insurance and Health," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 490-505, July.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0083147. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.