The Bank of Englands chief economist Andy Haldane has suggested that peoples Spotify downloads may be a useful tool to understand their mood and behaviours.
In a speech today about new possibilities in data analytics, Haldane discussed potential data tools which could be “expanded to improve the Banks understanding of the economic and financial system”.
Read more: Spotify share price drop after huge Wall Street listing
Among the data metrics singled out by Haldane to better understand and measure human behaviours, were the kinds of books, music and TV shows people enjoy.
“To give one recent example, data on music downloads from Spotify has been used, in tandem with semantic search techniques applied to the words of songs, to provide an indicator of peoples sentiment,” he said.
According to Haldane, the results from the Spotify study did at least as well in tracking consumer spending as the Michigan survey of consumer confidence in the US.
Read more: Hulu and Spotify join forces
Haldane also said that video games could be used to understand human behaviour, and singled out games like EVE Online and World of Warcraft as environments which have "primitive economies".
According to Haldane, economists like Steven Levitt have used gaming platforms “to understand the demand curve for virtual goods”.
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