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Forecasting European economic policy uncertainty

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  • Stavros Degiannakis
  • George Filis

Abstract

Forecasting the economic policy uncertainty in Europe is of paramount importance given the ongoing sovereign debt crisis. This paper evaluates monthly economic policy uncertainty index forecasts and examines whether ultra‐high frequency information from asset market volatilities and global economic uncertainty can improve the forecasts relatively to the no‐change forecast. The results show that the global economic policy uncertainty provides the highest predictive gains, followed by the European and US stock market realized volatilities. In addition, the European stock market implied volatility index is shown to be an important predictor of the economic policy uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Stavros Degiannakis & George Filis, 2019. "Forecasting European economic policy uncertainty," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(1), pages 94-114, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:66:y:2019:i:1:p:94-114
    DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12174
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    Cited by:

    1. Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Degiannakis, Stavros & Delis, Panagiotis & Filis, George, 2021. "Forecasting oil price volatility using spillover effects from uncertainty indices," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    2. Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Degiannakis, Stavros & Delis, Panagiotis & Filis, George, 2019. "Can spillover effects provide forecasting gains? The case of oil price volatility," MPRA Paper 96266, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Brandt, Richard, 2021. "Economic Policy Uncertainty Index: Extension and optimization of Scott R. Baker, Nicholas Bloom and Steven J. Davis's search term," DoCMA Working Papers 5, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund Center for Data-based Media Analysis (DoCMA).
    4. Orlowski, Lucjan T., 2023. "How susceptible is the European financial stability to economic policy uncertainty?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 864-875.
    5. Bonato, Matteo & Çepni, Oğuzhan & Gupta, Rangan & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2021. "Do oil-price shocks predict the realized variance of U.S. REITs?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Afees A. Salisu & Rangan Gupta & Ahamuefula E. Ogbonna, 2021. "Point and density forecasting of macroeconomic and financial uncertainties of the USA," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(4), pages 700-707, July.
    7. Afees A. Salisu & Rangan Gupta & Ahamuefula E. Ogbonna, 2020. "Point and Density Forecasting of Macroeconomic and Financial Uncertainties of the United States," Working Papers 202058, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    8. Alqahtani, Abdullah & Klein, Tony & Khalid, Ali, 2019. "The impact of oil price uncertainty on GCC stock markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Joscha Beckmann & Robert L. Czudaj & Gary Koop, 2019. "An empirical assessment of recent challenges in today's financial markets," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(1), pages 1-4, February.
    10. Gupta, Rangan & Sun, Xiaojin, 2020. "Forecasting economic policy uncertainty of BRIC countries using Bayesian VARs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    11. Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2023. "Oil price assumptions for macroeconomic policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    12. Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Rangan Gupta & Riza Demirer & Christian Pierdzioch, 2022. "Oil shocks and directional predictability of macroeconomic uncertainties of developed economies: Evidence from high‐frequency data†," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(2), pages 169-185, May.

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    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • E66 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General Outlook and Conditions
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

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