Scott R. Baker

TL;DR: The authors developed a new index of economic policy uncertainty based on newspaper coverage frequency and found that policy uncertainty spikes near tight presidential elections, Gulf Wars I and II, the 9/11 attacks, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the 2011 debt ceiling dispute and other major battles over fiscal policy.

TL;DR: The authors developed a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU), built on three components: the frequency of newspaper references to economic policy uncertainties, the number of federal tax code provisions set to expire, and the extent of forecaster disagreement over future inflation and government purchases.

TL;DR: For example, the authors found that government restrictions on commercial activity and voluntary social distancing, operating with powerful effects in a service-oriented economy, are the main reasons the U S stock market reacted so much more forcefully to COVID-19 than to previous pandemics in 1918, 1957, and 1968.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify three indicators (i.e., stock market volatility, newspaper-based economic uncertainty, and subjective uncertainty in business expectation surveys) that provide real-time forward-looking uncertainty measures.

TL;DR: For example, this paper found that government restrictions on commercial activity and voluntary social distancing, operating with powerful effects in a service-oriented economy, are the main reasons the U.S. stock market reacted so much more forcefully to COVID-19 than to previous pandemics in 1918-19, 1957-58 and 1968.