This paper reviews some of the applications that use the vast swathes of information
provided by Internet user searches for economic analysis and forecasting. This enormous
volume of information, available in real time, can be handled by analysts thanks to statistical
tools such as “Google Insights for Search”, which allow trends in different areas of interest to
be classified and evaluated. Previous work focused predominantly on the labour market, on
the housing market, on retail sales and on consumer confidence. This paper presents a very …