Attention [And Inattention] to Philippine Data on Debt and Related Macroeconomic Indicators

Purpose – There has been growing attention to Philippine macroeconomic indicators, such as economic growth, inflation, and exchange rate movements, heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This growing attention has been complemented by the hastened migration of socioeconomic activities to online media and platforms. In addition, the uncertainties of the pandemic have also increased awareness, curiosity, and interest among the general population, despite the growing problems of mis-, dis-, and mal-information. Design/Methodology/Approach – We show that this heightened interest complements the traditional economic theories of expectations of data on debt in relation to other related macroeconomic variables through the official reported data and Google trends data from 2004 to 2024. Using the experience of the Philippines, we investigate debt and related macroeconomic variables, and how big data possibly correlates with heightened interest given the economic history experience of the Philippine economy using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model and Granger Causality. Findings – Data indications give suggestions, along with the behavioral and communication dimensions of debt, macroeconomic variables, and big data, given the state of financial and economic literacy in the Philippines. Attention is heightened during national data reporting and changes in administration due to elections. Thus, noneconomic activities such as midterm and national elections, and even regular reporting of macroeconomic data by the government induces interest in debt activity and severity. Research Implications – Overall, the nuances and suggestions of the results in this paper hope to provide new insights as to how to improve and enhance the country’s financial and economic literacy, and potentially recalibrate existing efforts and strategies to achieve such objectives.