Facebook is making some big claims about its economic reach. But not everyone is convinced.
The social media giant commissioned a study, which was published Tuesday, that claims the company is responsible for $227 billion in global economic impact and for creating 4.5 million jobs worldwide in 2014.
The report, prepared by the consulting firm Deloitte, also gives Facebook credit for about one-sixth of smartphone sales.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the company's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg even said that some people are mistaking Facebook for the Internet.
Related: How Facebook Is Moving into Your Workspace
"We know Facebook is one of the main drivers of why people buy phones, particularly in the developing world," she told the Wall Street Journal. "People will walk into phone stores and say 'I want Facebook.' People actually confuse Facebook and the internet in some places."
But some economists are throwing cold water on the study's findings claiming that Facebook is not the cause of the economic growth, but an effect.
"The results are meaningless," Stanford economist Roger Noll said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. "Facebook is an effect, not a cause, of the growth of Internet access and use."
Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, also told The Wall Street Journal that Facebook probably didn't create as many jobs as the report estimates. “The value of smartphones is that they help you read Facebook — in addition to other benefits — not vice versa,” Cowen said, calling the study’s calculations “bad reasoning.”
Read more on The Wall Street Journal's website.
This article originally appeared in CNBC.
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