The global economic impact of disinformation

A first: quantifying the invisible

The paradox: At the start of 2024, the World Economic Forum ranked the phenomenon as a “major global risk” for the second conse cutive year. Governments treat it as a priority. Companies allocate growing budgets to tackle it. Citizens no longer know whom to trust.

And yet, no rigorous accounting exists to measure the scale of this economic haemorrhage.

Why this study comes at the right time

COVID-19 triggered an unprecedented “infodemic” in which reliable information became a matter of life or death.

Generative AI has industrialised the creation of misleading content at massive scale.

Hybrid warfare is intensifying: information manipulation has become a central strategic tool in confrontations between states.

2024, a record year with 4 billion people voting worldwide, saw information integrity directly threaten democratic processes themselves.

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Key takeways

The global costs of disinformation in 2024

Beyond the figures: a shift paradigm

This study does not merely quantify. It repositions disinformation for what it is: a major business risk, not solely a democratic challenge.

• For businesses: integrate informational risk into risk matrices on a par with cyber or climate risk.
• For regulators: consider the economics of disinformation and target the financial flows that sustain it.
• For decision-makers: arbitrate between prevention and remediation on an evidence-based footing.

The objective: to enable economic and political actors to make informed decisions.

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Scientific Committee

Tiziana Assenza - Professor of Economics, Toulouse School of Economics

Associate Professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics, specialising in behavioural and experimental macroeconomics. Her research focuses in particular on expectation formation, central bank communication, and the impact of disinformation on economic behaviour. She has also served as Associate Editor at the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control since 2025.

Clément Bénesse - Mathematician, Data Analysis Specialist, Opsci.ai

Clément holds a doctorate in mathematics and specialises in statistics and machine learning, having trained at the Université Paul Sabatier - Toulouse III and the ENS de Lyon. He conducts research in responsible artificial intelligence - notably on explainability, algorithmic fairness, and privacy protection - at UQÀM and in collaboration with the University of Ottawa. Driven by a multidisciplinary approach, he bridges mathematics, computer science, and law to shed light on the technical and societal challenges of modern AI.

Cyril Rollinde - Econometrician, Citizing Consulting

An econometrician, he contributes to the socio-economic evaluation of projects and public policies. Trained as an economist (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), he brings extensive experience in impact analysis, public innovation, and social entrepreneurship.