IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v60y2021i2d10.1007_s00181-019-01772-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring economic and economic policy uncertainty and their macroeconomic effects: the case of Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Corinna Ghirelli

    (Banco de España (Eurosystem))

  • María Gil

    (Banco de España (Eurosystem))

  • Javier J. Pérez

    (Banco de España (Eurosystem))

  • Alberto Urtasun

    (Banco de España (Eurosystem))

Abstract

We provide additional evidence on the relationship between uncertainty and economic activity. For this purpose, we gather and construct a wide range of proxy indicators of economic and economic policy uncertainty from Spain. We distinguish between the relative merits of different types of measures based on (i) the volatility of financial markets; (ii) economic analysts’ disagreement; and (iii) economic policy uncertainty. We show that the first and the third block of measures are the most relevant to grasp the negative effects of unexpected changes in uncertainty on aggregate economic developments, as measured by real GDP. In addition, we find that economic policy uncertainty and financial uncertainty shocks produce visible negative effects on private consumption. The negative responses on capital goods investments are initially bigger in magnitude but vanish more quickly.

Suggested Citation

  • Corinna Ghirelli & María Gil & Javier J. Pérez & Alberto Urtasun, 2021. "Measuring economic and economic policy uncertainty and their macroeconomic effects: the case of Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 869-892, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:60:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-019-01772-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-019-01772-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-019-01772-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-019-01772-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    2. Ryan Zalla, 2017. "Economic Policy Uncertainty in Ireland," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(2), pages 269-271, June.
    3. Angus Moore, 2017. "Measuring Economic Uncertainty and Its Effects," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(303), pages 550-575, December.
    4. Susanto Basu & Brent Bundick, 2017. "Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 937-958, May.
    5. Haroon Mumtaz & Francesco Zanetti, 2013. "The Impact of the Volatility of Monetary Policy Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(4), pages 535-558, June.
    6. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Juan Manuel Figueres, 2020. "Economic Policy Uncertainty Spillovers in Booms and Busts," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(1), pages 125-155, February.
    7. Caggiano, Giovanni & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Groshenny, Nicolas, 2014. "Uncertainty shocks and unemployment dynamics in U.S. recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-92.
    8. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Gabriela Nodari, 2014. "Uncertainty and Monetary Policy in Good and Bad Times," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0188, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    9. Jonas Dovern & Ulrich Fritsche & Jiri Slacalek, 2012. "Disagreement Among Forecasters in G7 Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1081-1096, November.
    10. Efrem Castelnuovo & Guay Lim & Giovanni Pellegrino, 2017. "A Short Review of the Recent Literature on Uncertainty," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 50(1), pages 68-78, March.
    11. Colombo, Valentina, 2013. "Economic policy uncertainty in the US: Does it matter for the Euro area?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 39-42.
    12. Barbara Rossi & Tatevik Sekhposyan, 2015. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty Indices Based on Nowcast and Forecast Error Distributions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 650-655, May.
    13. Meinen, Philipp & Roehe, Oke, 2017. "On measuring uncertainty and its impact on investment: Cross-country evidence from the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 161-179.
    14. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    15. Joan Paredes & Javier J. Pérez & Gabriel Perez Quiros, 2023. "Fiscal targets. A guide to forecasters?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 472-492, June.
    16. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Fabien Tripier, 2018. "Uncertainty and the Macroeconomy: Evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator," Post-Print hal-01757042, HAL.
    17. Lawrence J. Christiano & Roberto Motto & Massimo Rostagno, 2014. "Risk Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 27-65, January.
    18. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana & Keith Kuester & Juan Rubio-Ramírez, 2015. "Fiscal Volatility Shocks and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3352-3384, November.
    19. Luigi Guiso & Giuseppe Parigi, 1999. "Investment and Demand Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 185-227.
    20. Giovanni Angelini & Emanuele Bacchiocchi & Giovanni Caggiano & Luca Fanelli, 2019. "Uncertainty across volatility regimes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(3), pages 437-455, April.
    21. Yavuz Arslan & Aslıhan Atabek & Timur Hulagu & Saygın Şahinöz, 2015. "Expectation errors, uncertainty, and economic activity," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 634-660.
    22. Ghirelli, Corinna & Pérez, Javier J. & Urtasun, Alberto, 2019. "A new economic policy uncertainty index for Spain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 64-67.
    23. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    24. Castelnuovo, Efrem & Tran, Trung Duc, 2017. "Google It Up! A Google Trends-based Uncertainty index for the United States and Australia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 149-153.
    25. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    26. Maximo Camacho & Gabriel Perez Quiros, 2011. "Spain‐Sting: Spain Short‐Term Indicator Of Growth," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(s1), pages 594-616, June.
    27. Roberto S. Mariano & Yasutomo Murasawa, 2003. "A new coincident index of business cycles based on monthly and quarterly series," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 427-443.
    28. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Fabien Tripier, 2018. "Uncertainty and the macroeconomy: evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(10), pages 1093-1107, February.
    29. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    30. Miss Stephanie Denis & Mr. Prakash Kannan, 2013. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks on the UK Economy," IMF Working Papers 2013/066, International Monetary Fund.
    31. Jacopo Timini, 2018. "The drivers of Italian exports and product market entry: 1862-1913 (Updated August 2020)," Working Papers 1836, Banco de España, revised Aug 2020.
    32. Steven J. Davis, 2016. "An Index of Global Economic Policy Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 22740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Chris Woolston, 2014. "Rice," Nature, Nature, vol. 514(7524), pages 49-49, October.
    34. Haddow, Abigail & Hare, Chris & Hooley, John & Shakir, Tamarah, 2013. "Macroeconomic uncertainty: what is it, how can we measure it and why does it matter?," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 53(2), pages 100-109.
    35. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_008 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. repec:mcb:jmoncb:v:45:y:2013:i::p:535-558 is not listed on IDEAS
    37. Stock J.H. & Watson M.W., 2002. "Forecasting Using Principal Components From a Large Number of Predictors," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 1167-1179, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Saygin Sahinoz & Evren Erdogan Cosar, 2020. "Quantifying uncertainty and identifying its impacts on the Turkish economy," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 365-387, May.
    2. Tosapol Apaitan & Pongsak Luangaram & Pym Manopimoke, 2022. "Uncertainty in an emerging market economy: evidence from Thailand," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 933-989, March.
    3. Gupta, Rangan & Ma, Jun & Risse, Marian & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Common business cycles and volatilities in US states and MSAs: The role of economic uncertainty," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 317-337.
    4. Rangan Gupta & Chi Keung Marco Lau & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "The impact of US uncertainty on the Euro area in good and bad times: evidence from a quantile structural vector autoregressive model," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 353-368, May.
    5. Pierdzioch Christian & Gupta Rangan, 2020. "Uncertainty and Forecasts of U.S. Recessions," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(4), pages 1-20, September.
    6. Basile, Roberto & Girardi, Alessandro, 2018. "Uncertainty and Business Cycle: A Review of the Literature and Some Evidence from the Spanish Economy/Incertidumbre y Ciclo Empresarial: Revisión de la literatura y evidencia en la economía española," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 36, pages 235-250, Enero.
    7. Himounet, Nicolas, 2022. "Searching the nature of uncertainty: Macroeconomic and financial risks VS geopolitical and pandemic risks," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 1-31.
    8. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2022. "Uncertainty Before and During COVID-19: A Survey," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0279, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    9. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Fabien Tripier, 2017. "Uncertainty and the Macroeconomy," Post-Print hal-01549625, HAL.
    10. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Fabien Tripier, 2018. "Uncertainty and the Macroeconomy: Evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator," Post-Print hal-01757042, HAL.
    11. Josué Diwambuena & Jean-Paul K. Tsasa, 2021. "The Real Effects of Uncertainty Shocks: New Evidence from Linear and Nonlinear SVAR Models," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS87, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    12. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Fabien Tripier, 2018. "Uncertainty and the macroeconomy: evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(10), pages 1093-1107, February.
    13. Bonciani, Dario & Ricci, Martino, 2020. "The international effects of global financial uncertainty shocks," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    14. Schüler, Yves S., 2020. "The impact of uncertainty and certainty shocks," Discussion Papers 14/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. Maria Elena Bontempi & Michele Frigeri & Roberto Golinelli & Matteo Squadrani, 2021. "EURQ: A New Web Search‐based Uncertainty Index," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(352), pages 969-1015, October.
    16. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    17. Andrea Carriero & Alessio Volpicella, 2022. "Generalizing the Max Share Identification to multiple shocks identification: an Application to Uncertainty," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0322, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    18. Claeys, Peter & Vašíček, Bořek, 2019. "Transmission of uncertainty shocks: Learning from heterogeneous responses on a panel of EU countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 62-83.
    19. Laurent Ferrara & Stéphane Lhuissier & Fabien Tripier, 2018. "Uncertainty Fluctuations: Measures, Effects and Macroeconomic Policy Challenges," Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, in: Laurent Ferrara & Ignacio Hernando & Daniela Marconi (ed.), International Macroeconomics in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis, pages 159-181, Springer.
    20. Nicolas Himounet & Francisco Serranito & Julien Vauday, 2021. "Uncertainty is bad for Business. Really?," Working Papers 2021.03, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic uncertainty; Economic policy uncertainty; Spanish economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:60:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-019-01772-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.