News of a big pay rise might see you booking the nearest fancy restaurant for a slap-up meal to celebrate, or encourage you to go on a shopping spree even before your raise hits your bank account.

Recent research shows that this is also essentially what happens on a wider economic scale when news breaks about future technologies. Expectations about technological advances are associated with higher wealth in the future. When we see new technologies such as 5G cellular networks or delivery drones on the horizon, we can see that they could substantially change our daily life, just as the internet and smartphones have done in the past.

And, as with the above example of a future pay rise, this encourages people to spend right now, boosting GDP even before the new technology is actually available. This research can also help us understand how news headlines about interest rates affect the future of the economy.

On an almost daily basis, we read and learn about imminent technological advances that give us hope of higher future wealth and a better quality of life – whether it’s a new type of phone, better online conferencing tools or even the development of life-changing technologies such as mRNA vaccines or self-driving electric vehicles. But we don’t have to wait for these new technologies to become available for them to start affecting our lives. Our behaviour changes even just in anticipation of future technological advances – because they make us anticipate a wealthier future, research shows we spend more in the present.