Peaked Interest: Public Interest in Hunger and the Economic Cycle

Abstract

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #2 is to end hunger. Private enterprises can aid in this effort if they have the right information. This paper creates an index to measure general interest in hunger in the United States (2004-2018). This ‘hunger interest index’ is based on keyword search frequency data from Google for a variety of hunger related keywords which appear in the mission statements of social businesses. We compare the ‘hunger interest index’ to broader economic trends and find that general interest in hunger increases as economic misery increases. Further, interest in hunger is shown to be positively related to interest in food banks and donations. The results provide valuable information to social enterprises for which combating hunger is a key value, and to social entrepreneurs looking to focus on hunger reduction in their new venture.