On the Construction of a Leading Indicator Based on News Headlines for Predicting Greek Deposit Outflows

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, construct a leading indicator based on news headlines, and second, examine whether this novel indicator affects Greek bank deposit flows’ trajectory. Employing alternative econometric methodologies, we find that this index proxies for depositors’ crisis sentiment, and the higher this index becomes, the higher the depositors’ negative sentiment becomes, leading them to withdraw their bank deposits. Monetary poly authorities or macroprudential regulators could adapt our model to assess the resilience of a bank or the whole banking sector.