Ahead of Memorial Day Weekend, Rutgers economist Bruce Mizrach is available to comment on a new Rutgers working paper that analyzes Google searches and makes revenue predictions for specific areas of the Jersey Shore.

Mizrach said: “For New Jersey, one of the important steps in re-opening the economy will be revenues from the shore towns. Using Google trends data, we found that searches about Beach Haven, Cape May and Seaside Heights amongst New Jersey residents are down substantially from May 2019. Searches for hotels and boardwalks are also down more than 40% from last year at this time.

“We used a model to produce a forecast for 2020 revenue in these towns,” he continued. “In looking at Cape May, we predict the 2020 hotel tax revenue will be $1.105 million, a decline of 19.9% from the $1.380 million collected in 2019. For Seaside Heights, we predict a 2020 tax revenue of $4.328 million, a decline of 17.4% from the $5.242 million collected in 2019. In Beach Haven, we predict a 2020 hotel and motel tax revenue of $0.1935 million, a 10.95% decline from 2019.”

To view the full report, click here.

Mizrach is a professor in the department of economics at Rutgers. He is the founder and editor of Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, which uses nonlinear analysis to understand economic and financial markets.

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