The Societal Impact of Economic Anxiety

Gordon G. Bechtel
2021 Journal of Data Science  
Loss of household income and purchasing power are shown to have broad and negative societal effects. The economic anxiety accompanying this loss has its strongest impact on consumer demand, which is the major factor in a nation's gross domestic product (GDP). Negative effects of economic anxiety are also found on the propensity to vote, political trust, societal satisfaction, and the quality of life. These effects were verified in a crossnational sample from the fifth round of the European
more » ... l Survey. Simple regression of the true value of consumer demand, etc. on the true value of economic anxiety is made possible by an estimate of the reliability of our economic-anxiety score (cf. Bechtel, 2010; 2011; 2012) . This reliability estimate corrects the regression slope of each societal variable for measurement error in the anxiety score.
doi:10.6339/jds.201210_10(4).0007 fatcat:4n4qciqrvnf3va5bewetbm6ize