Assessing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is essential for policymakers, but challenging because the crisis has unfolded with extreme speed. We identify three indicators – stock market volatility, newspaper-based economic uncertainty, and subjective uncertainty in business...

A growing body of evidence suggests that uncertainty is counter cyclical, rising sharply in recessions and falling in booms. But what is the causal relationship between uncertainty and growth? To identify this we construct cross country panel data on stock market levels and volatility as proxies...

Recent literature has highlighted the importance of new activities in development and growth. It was shown that trade distortions such as tariffs are associated with first-order costs stemming from the induced drop in the formation of new activities. This paper demonstrates that uncertainty may...