Showing 1 - 10 of 15
We show how real and financial frictions amplify the impact of uncertainty shocks. We build a model with real frictions, and find adding financial frictions roughly doubles the impact of uncertainty shocks. Higher uncertainty alongside financial frictions induces the standard real-options...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011895833
We develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) based on newspaper coverage frequency. Several types of evidence - including human readings of 12,000 newspaper articles - indicate that our index proxies for movements in policy-related economic uncertainty. Our US index spikes near...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012457036
This review article tries to answer four questions: (i) what are the stylized facts about uncertainty over time; (ii) why does uncertainty vary; (iii) do fluctuations in uncertainty matter; and (iv) did higher uncertainty worsen the Great Recession of 2007-2009? On the first question both macro...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012458949
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...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012459187
We propose uncertainty shocks as a new shock that drives business cycles. First, we demonstrate that microeconomic uncertainty is robustly countercyclical, rising sharply during recessions, particularly during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Second, we quantify the impact of time-varying...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012460415
Uncertainty appears to jump up after major shocks like the Cuban Missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the OPEC I oil-price shock and the 9/11 terrorist attack. This paper offers a structural framework to analyze the impact of these uncertainty shocks. I build a model with a time varying...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012465265
Uncertainty varies strongly over time, rising by 50% to 100% in recessions and by up to 200% after major economic and political shocks. This paper shows that higher uncertainty reduces the responsiveness of R&D to changes in business conditions - a "caution-effect" - making it more persistent...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012465815
facing uninsurable idiosyncratic labor income risk. The Ramsey government internalizes the general equilibrium feedback of … optimal aggregate saving rate is independent of income risk. The optimal time-invariant tax on capital is increasing in income … risk. Its sign depends on the extent of risk and on the Pareto weight of future generations. If the Ramsey tax rate that …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012453379
Uncertainty appears to have both a short-run and a long-run component, which we measure using firm and macro implied volatility data from options of 30 days to 10 years duration. We ask what may be driving uncertainty over these different time horizons, finding that oil price volatility is...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012455006
Uncertainty rises in recessions and falls in booms. But what is the causal relationship? We construct cross-country panel data on stock market levels and volatility and use natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and political shocks as instruments in regressions and VAR estimations. We find that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012481750