Business Closures and (Re)Openings in Real Time Using Google Places

Thibaut Duprey, Daniel E. Rigobon, Philip Schnattinger, Artur Kotlicki, Soheil Baharian and T. R. Hurd

Staff Working Papers from Bank of Canada

Abstract: We present a new method to measure business opening and closure rates using real-time information from Google Places, the dataset behind the Google Maps service. Our Canadian application confirms the importance of temporary closures and reopenings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 50% of the temporarily closed food and retail businesses during the April 2021 lockdown reopened by the end of September. Our estimates align well with the timing of COVID-19 restrictions and are validated by a survey of recently opened businesses. Our framework provides policy-makers with a tool for the timely monitoring of business dynamics.

Keywords: Firm dynamics; Recent economic and financial developments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C55 C81 D22 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2022-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-ent and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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