globaltrends

globaltrends is no longer available through CRAN! Install directly from GitHub.

# install ----------------------------------------------------------------------
devtools::install_github(
  repo = "ha-pu/globaltrends",
  build_vignettes = TRUE
)

Introduction

Google offers public access to global search volumes through its search engine through the Google Trends portal. The globaltrends package downloads search volumes provided by Google Trends and uses them to measure and analyze the distribution of search trends across countries or within countries. globaltrends allows researchers and analysts to investigate patterns within these trends, such as degree of internationalization of firms and organizations or dissemination of political, social, or technological trends across the globe or within single countries.

To measure degree of internationalization, globaltrends offers a wide array of empirical possibilities. It allows researchers to compare degree of internationalization for various organizations on a unified scale. In addition, the time-series nature of Google Trends allows for historical analysis of internationalization patterns and speed within organizations.

The enormous detail of the data opens additional applications in research that are impossible with traditional measures of internationalization. For instance, using globaltrends on a subnational level allows researchers to study proliferation within a country and, for example, to trace a particular market entry. In addition, globaltrends offers applications beyond corporate internationalization, such as data on global interest in products, persons, events, fads or scandals, even academic authors and papers.

globaltrends provides user-friendly access to Google Trends. The package vignette offers additional technical details and a basic tutorial. Please, refer to the package NEWS for a change log.

Usage

This version of the globaltrends package can use the Google Trends Research API provided by Google. To use this API acces, you must:

1. Apply for API access online. and generate an API key in your Google developer console.
2. Create a Python or Conda environment where you install the google-api-python-client package with pip.

To interact with the API (i.e., to download data from Google Trends), you must first initialize your Python session and run initialize_python() before the downloads (see below). If initialize_python() is not called, the downloads will be made throught the gtrendsR package. We suggest using the official Google Trends Research API as the preferred option to access data from Google Trends!

# packages ---------------------------------------------------------------------
library(dplyr)
library(globaltrends)

# connect to db ----------------------------------------------------------------
initialize_db()
start_db()

# add new control batch --------------------------------------------------------
new_control <- add_control_keyword(keyword = c("gmail", "map", "translate", "wikipedia", "youtube"))

# add new object batch ---------------------------------------------------------
new_object <- add_object_keyword(keyword = c("manchester united", "real madrid"))

# initialize python ------------------------------------------------------------
initialize_python(
  api_key = Sys.getenv("GOOGLE_API_KEY"), # Google Trends API key
  conda_env = Sys.getenv("CONDA_ENV"), # Location of conda environment OR
  python_env = Sys.getenv("PYTHON_ENV") # Location of Python environment
)

# run control download ---------------------------------------------------------
download_control(control = new_control)
download_control_global(control = new_control)

# run object download ----------------------------------------------------------
download_object(object = new_object)
download_object_global(object = new_object)

# compute search score ---------------------------------------------------------
compute_score(control = new_control, object = new_object)
compute_voi(control = new_control, object = new_object)

# compute degree of internationalization ---------------------------------------
compute_doi(control = new_control, object = new_object)

# export data ------------------------------------------------------------------
out_score <- export_score(keyword = "manchester united")
out_voi <- export_voi(keyword = "manchester united")
out_doi <- export_doi(locations = "countries")

# disconnect from db -----------------------------------------------------------
disconnect_db()

If you use the globaltrends package, please cite it as: Puhr, H., & Müllner, J. (2021). Let me Google that for you: Capturing globalization using Google Trends (SSRN Working Paper 3969013). Available at https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3969013.

Publications that use globaltrends

• Kupfer, A., & Puhr, H. (2022). The Russian view on the war in Ukraine: insights from Google Trends. Available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=4063194.
• Puhr, H. (2024). Österreichs Lage im Herzen Europas zwischen Ost und West: Konnektivität als Standortfaktor für Unternehmenszentralen. In Österreich und seine Headquarters Economy: Ist Österreich ein attraktiver Standort für Unternehmenszentralen? (pp. 31-45). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
• Puhr, H., & Müllner, J. (2022). Foreign to all but fluent in many: The effect of multinationality on shock resilience. Journal of World Business, 57(6), 101370.
• Puhr, H., & Müllner, J. (2024). Vox populi, vox dei: A concept and measure for grassroots socio-political risk using Google Trends. Journal of International Management, 30(2), 101096.
• Puhr, H., Müllner, J., & Trentini, C. (2023). An innovative measure for digital firms’ internationalization. Transnational Corporations Journal, 30(3).
• Scheuch, C., Voigt, S., & Weiss, P. (2023). Tidy finance with R. CRC Press.