Craigslist and the Economy: Predicting Unemployment and Foreclosure Trends from Online Classified Advertisements
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract:
In this paper we present findings of an experimental study of Craigslist.org involving nearly 4 million raw online classified advertisements to infer key economic indicators. First, we investigate the potential of using Craigslist information to predict the state of the national and local economy by analyzing user behavior and posting trends in some key categories. We show that the number of posts for jobs available/wanted reflects the actual trends reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We examine the potential of predicting unemployment and home foreclosure rates from online classified advertisements in geographically localized peer production communities. We show that there is a strong correlation between the number of houses posted for sale, the number of jobs available/wanted and the actual state of the local and national economy. Finally, we analyze job posts in 32 categories and day to day changes and conclude the “recession proof jobs” and jobs highly affected by the recent economic meltdown.
- Subject:
- Business, Mathematics and Statistics, Science and Technology
- Grade Level:
- Post-secondary
- Collection:
- Connexions