In Tandem or Out of Style? Academic Economics Research and Public Policy Measures

<div class="line" id="line-7"> This paper investigates whether academic research attention to certain policy&hyphen;related measures (including gross domestic product, unemployment, and inflation) is correlated with empirical measurements of the measures themselves. In other words, when unemployment rises, does research attention to the matter increase? Or do economists pursue research (in the short run) relatively uninfluenced by policy shocks on the ground? Text analysis implies that economic attention to key policy terms does correlate with empirical movements of the terms in most instances; however, the stronger and more consistent correlation is between use of policy terms in the literature and discussion of them by the broader public.</div>