Can one improve now-casts of crop prices in Africa? Google can.
Can one improve now-casts of crop prices in Africa? Google can.
dc.contributor.author | Weber, Regine | |
dc.contributor.author | Kornher, Lukas | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2024-09-05T13:36:37Z | |
dc.date.available | 2024-09-05T13:36:37Z | |
dc.date.issued | 02.2019 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11811/12062 | |
dc.description.abstract | With increasing Internet user rates across Africa, there is considerable interest in exploring new, online data sources. Particularly, search engine metadata, i.e. data representing the contemporaneous online-interest in a specific topic, has gained considerable interest, due to its potential to extract a near real-time online signal about the current interest of a society. The objective of this study is to analyze whether search engine metadata in the form of Google Search Query (GSQ) data can be used to improve now-casts of maize prices in nine African countries, these are Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We formulate as benchmark an auto-regressive model for each country, which we subsequently augment by two specifications based on contemporary GSQ data. We test the models in in-sample, and in a pseudo out-of-sample, one-step-ahead nowcasting environment and compare their forecasting errors. The GSQ specifications improve the now-casting fit in 8 out 9 countries and reduce the now-casting error between 3% and 23%. The largest improvement of maize price now-casts is achieved for Malawi, Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania, with improvements larger than 14%. | de |
dc.format.extent | 40 | |
dc.language.iso | eng | |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | ZEF-Discussion Papers on Development Policy ; 271 | |
dc.rights | In Copyright | |
dc.rights.uri | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | |
dc.subject | Food Security | |
dc.subject | Maize Prices | |
dc.subject | Search Query Volume | |
dc.subject | Internet | |
dc.subject | Early Warning Systems | |
dc.subject.ddc | 300 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie, Anthropologie | |
dc.subject.ddc | 320 Politik | |
dc.subject.ddc | 330 Wirtschaft | |
dc.title | Can one improve now-casts of crop prices in Africa? Google can. | |
dc.type | Arbeitspapier | |
dc.publisher.name | Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn | |
dc.publisher.location | Bonn | |
dc.rights.accessRights | openAccess | |
dc.relation.eissn | 1436-9931 | |
dc.relation.url | https://www.zef.de/fileadmin/user_upload/ZEF_DP_271.pdf | |
ulbbn.pubtype | Zweitveröffentlichung | |
dc.version | publishedVersion |