News Sentiment in the Time of COVID-19

Buckman, Shelby R.; Shapiro, Adam Hale; Sudhof, Moritz; Wilson, Daniel J.

Journal Article

News Sentiment in the Time of COVID-19

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic is causing severe disruptions to daily life and economic activity. Reliable assessments of the economic fallout in this rapidly evolving situation require timely data. Existing sentiment indexes are useful indicators of current and future spending but are only available with a lag or have a short history. A new Daily News Sentiment Index provides a way to measure sentiment in real time from 1980 to today. Compared with survey-based measures of consumer sentiment, this index shows an earlier and more pronounced drop in sentiment in recent weeks.

Keywords: pandemic; Daily News Sentiment Index; COVID-19;