Abstract: The impact of uncertainty on the decision-making of economic agents, such as firms and households, is a important but often neglected element of micro- and macroeconomic theory. With the onset of the financial crisis in 2007 and the strong increase in uncertainty that accompanied it,...

"Investors' option-implied fear measures - implied volatility (ATMIV) and put-call implied volatility ratios (P/C) - lead key macroeconomic variables such as industrial capacity utilization and short term interest rates by up to eight quarters. We show that this interaction between fear indices,...