01873cas a2200253 a 4500 AALejournalIMF018968 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781484390177 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Narita, Futoshi. In Search of Information : Use of Google Trends' Data to Narrow Information Gaps for Low-income Developing Countries / Futoshi Narita, Rujun Yin. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2018. 1 online resource (51 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students Timely data availability is a long-standing challenge in policy-making and analysis for low-income developing countries. This paper explores the use of Google Trends' data to narrow such information gaps and finds that online search frequencies about a country significantly correlate with macroeconomic variables (e.g., real GDP, inflation, capital flows), conditional on other covariates. The correlation with real GDP is stronger than that of nighttime lights, whereas the opposite is found for emerging market economies. The search frequencies also improve out-of-sample forecasting performance albeit slightly, demonstrating their potential to facilitate timely assessments of economic conditions in low-income developing countries. Mode of access: Internet Yin, Rujun. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2018/286 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2018/286/001.2018.issue-286-en.xml IMF e-Library