Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty

48 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2013

See all articles by Scott R. Baker

Scott R. Baker

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Nicholas Bloom

Stanford University - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Steven J. Davis

University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Hoover Institution

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: January 1, 2013

Abstract

Many commentators argue that uncertainty about tax, spending, monetary and regulatory policy slowed the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession. To investigate this we develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU), built on three components: the frequency of newspaper references to economic policy uncertainty, the number of federal tax code provisions set to expire, and the extent of forecaster disagreement over future inflation and government purchases. This EPU index spikes near consequential presidential elections and major events such as the Gulf wars and the 9/11 attack. It also rises steeply from 2008 onward. We then evaluate our EPU index, first on a sample of 3,500 human audited news articles, and second against other measures of policy uncertainty, with these suggesting our EPU index is a good proxy for actual economic policy uncertainty. Drilling down into our index we find that the post-2008 increase was driven mainly by tax, spending and healthcare policy uncertainty. Finally, VAR estimates show that an innovation in policy uncertainty equal to the increase from 2006 to 2011 foreshadows declines of up to 2.3% in GDP and 2.3 million in employment.

Keywords: economic uncertainty, policy unvertainty, business cycles

JEL Classification: D80, E22, E66, G18, L50

Suggested Citation

Baker, Scott R. and Bloom, Nicholas and Davis, Steven J., Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty (January 1, 2013). Chicago Booth Research Paper No. 13-02, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2198490 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2198490

Scott R. Baker

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Department of Finance ( email )

Evanston, IL 60208
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
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Nicholas Bloom

Stanford University - Department of Economics ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://economics.stanford.edu/faculty/bloom

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Steven J. Davis (Contact Author)

University of Chicago ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Hoover Institution

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