Persistence of economic uncertainty: a comprehensive analysis

One of the most heavily researched and cited issue in applied economics is the relationship of uncertainty indices with the financial and macroeconomic variables. While the statistical features of financial and macroeconomic variables have been thoroughly examined, virtually nothing has been done to examine uncertainty indices under the statistical perspective. In this paper, we focus on two primary characteristics of uncertainty indices: persistence and chaotic behaviour. In order to evaluate the persistence and the chaotic behaviour we analyse 72 popular uncertainty indices constructed by forecasting models, text mining from news articles and data mining from monetary variables to measure the Hurst and Lyapunov exponents in rolling windows. The examination in rolling windows provides a dynamic evaluation of the specific characteristics revealing significant variations of persistence and chaotic dynamics with time. More specifically, we find that almost all uncertainty indices are persistent, while the chaotic dynamics are detected only sporadically and for certain indices during recessions of economic turbulence. Thus, we suggest that the examination of persistence and chaos should be a prerequisite step before using uncertainty indices in economic policy models.     

Growth in a time of austerity: evidence from the UK

This paper uses an empirical approach to test the specific causal relationship between debt and growth in the UK, in the context of the debate surrounding the use of a policy known as austerity measures. This time series perspective makes use of more recent Granger causality and cointegration tests that allow for non‐stationarity in macroeconomic time series data in the presence of structural breaks. Controlling for exogenous shocks associated with the period around the financial crisis, we find no evidence of a causal relationship between economic growth and public debt for the UK.     

Macroeconomic uncertainty,inflation and growth: Regime-dependent effects in the G7

We analyze the causal effects of real and nominal macroeconomic uncertainty on inflation and output growth by considering whether these effects are cycle phase specific. Employing a bivariate Smooth Transition EGARCH-M model for the G7 countries during 1957–2009, we find strong nonlinearities. First, uncertainty regarding the output growth rate is related with a higher average growth rate mostly in a low-growth regime, supporting the theory of “creative destruction”. Second, higher inflation uncertainty diminishes growth rates, mainly at a high-inflation regime. Finally, real uncertainty has mixed effects on average inflation, while the effect of nominal uncertainty is typically positive, especially so during inflationary periods. Our findings suggest that these relationships are sufficiently complex to require treatment with nonlinear models.     

Is the relationship between gold and the U.S. dollar always negative? The role of macroeconomic uncertainty

The main work of this article is to access the role of macroeconomic uncertainty in effecting the correlation between gold and the dollar. The empirical analysis is divided into two parts. Firstly, we examine the impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on short and long correlation between gold and the dollar. Secondly, we analyse the explanatory power of economic uncertainty for the abnormal market relation between gold and the dollar with a threshold model. In particular, we investigate impacts of economic uncertainty sourced from different economies. The empirical results indicate that economic uncertainty generates direct impacts on the correlation between gold and the dollar. Moreover, our results emphasize that uncertainty sourced from different economies have different impacts on the dynamics between gold and the dollar. This article also presents the relative contribution of gold and the dollar shocks to the likelihood of being in the high-uncertainty regime. These results have implications for risk management, international asset allocation and hedging strategies.     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Performance in Asian Countries*

We use a very general bivariate GARCH‐M model and quarterly data for five Asian countries to test for the impact of real and nominal macroeconomic uncertainty on inflation and output growth. We conclude the following. First, in the majority of countries uncertainty regarding the output growth rate is related negatively to the average growth rate. Secondly, contrary to expectations, inflation uncertainty in most cases does not harm the output growth performance of an economy. Thirdly, inflation and output uncertainty have a mixed effect on inflation. Consistent results are found using the VAR‐GARCH‐M approach to investigate the dynamic relationship between inflation and output growth using impulse response functions. This evidence implies that macroeconomic uncertainty may even improve macroeconomic performance, i.e. raise output growth and reduce inflation. Our empirical results highlight important differences with those for industrialized countries.     

Banking sector development and interest rate volatility in emerging economies

Over the last decades, macroeconomic stability is said to be one of the major concerns of emerging economies. Financial sector as a core of macroeconomic stability has been under close consideration of policy makers. The relationship between interest rate uncertainty and banking sector development as one of the most important indicators of financial sector development, especially for emerging economies, has not received enough attention in the literature. Perhaps this article is the most comprehensive study that investigates the relationship between interest rate uncertainty and banking sector development for a large group of emerging economies. To do this, the short-run and long-run models using a bounds testing approach to cointegration for 12 emerging economies over the period 1980–2011 have been developed. Estimated results from all models indicate that interest rate uncertainty has significant effect on banking sector development in both short-run and long-run phenomena in the majority of countries. The findings indicate that the link between interest rate uncertainty and banking sector development in each country depends on each country’s specific structure.     

货币政策能否促进银行对小微企业信贷投放*——基于宏观经济不确定视角的研究

本文研究在宏观经济不确定条件下，不同货币政策工具能否促进银行对小微企业信贷投放。首先，将货币政策引入考虑了宏观经济不确定性的银行资产组合模型中，论证货币政策、宏观经济不确定性与银行信贷资产配置的理论关系。然后利用我国181家银行2004—2018年的数据，检验在宏观经济不确定条件下，不同货币政策工具对银行小微企业信贷行为调控的作用效果。研究结果表明：宏观经济不确定性会抑制银行信贷行为。其中小微企业信贷占比较大的银行受到的影响更为显著。与数量型货币政策相比，价格型货币政策能够更显著地减轻不确定性对银行小微信贷的消极影响。其中银行同业拆借利率的调控效果最强。研究结论对于选择适宜的货币政策工具促进银行向小微企业信贷投放，化解经济不确定性对银行信贷行为的影响并助力小微企业发展等具有政策借鉴意义。     

Inflation,inflation uncertainty and growth: Are they related?

We examine the relationship between inflation uncertainty, inflation and growth using annual historical data on industrial countries covering in many cases more than one century. Proxying inflation uncertainty by the conditional variance of inflation shocks, we obtain the following results. (1) There is significant evidence for the positive effect of inflation uncertainty on inflation supporting the Cukierman–Meltzer hypothesis. (2) There is mixed evidence on the causal effect of inflation on inflation uncertainty. (3) There is strong evidence that inflation uncertainty is not detrimental to output growth.     

Time–frequency relationship between US inflation and inflation uncertainty: evidence from historical data

We provide new evidence on the relationship between inflation and its uncertainty in the United States on an historical basis, covering the period from 1775 to 2014. First, we use a bounded approach for measuring inflation uncertainty, as proposed by Chan et al. (2013), and compare the results with the Stock and Watson (2007) and Chan (2015) methods. Second, we employ the wavelet methodology to analyze the comovements and causal effects between the two series. Our results provide evidence of a relationship between inflation and its uncertainty that varies across time and frequency. First, we show that in the medium and long runs, the Freidman–Ball hypothesis holds with a bounded measure of uncertainty, while if the Stock and Watson (2007) measure of uncertainty is used, the Cukierman–Meltzer reasoning prevails. Therefore, the findings are sensitive to the way inflation uncertainty is computed. Second, we discover mixed evidence about the inflation–uncertainty nexus in the short run, findings that explain the mixed results reported to date in the empirical literature.     

Risk,uncertainty, and leverage

Using mostly theoretical models and traditional risk/uncertainty measures (VIX index, panic, precaution, scary bad news, etc.), the current literature tries to clarify the risk/uncertainty-deleveraging pattern. The findings are not sufficient to explain the dynamic empirical relationship between modern risk/uncertainty indicators and leverage. We fill this gap in the literature by using US quarterly data, from 1985:1 to 2018:4, Granger causality tests, and a structural vector autoregression model. We find that commercial bank leverage rises when geopolitical risk and macroeconomic, policy, and equity uncertainty increase. Client-based business relationships of banks and high government borrowing from banks during crises periods are responsible for this relationship. We find that the leverage of broker-dealers and shadow banks declines when Chicago risk and macroeconomic, policy, financial, and equity uncertainty increase. We argue that the vulnerability of broker-dealers and shadow banks to the risk/uncertainty of the entire market system is responsible for this relationship.     

不确定性容忍度、决策逻辑与突破式创新关系研究

以位于武汉市产业园、孵化器、创业园等多家公司的255位产品开发及技术研发人员、市场开发人员为有效样本，采用层级回归方法探讨不确定性容忍度、决策逻辑与突破式创新的关系。结果表明:不确定性容忍度与突破式创新显著正相关；不确定性容忍度与因果逻辑显著负相关，与效果逻辑显著正相关；突破式创新与因果逻辑显著负相关，与效果逻辑显著正相关；因果/效果决策在不确定性容忍度与突破式创新关系中发挥部分中介作用；不确定性容忍度正向调节效果逻辑与突破式创新的关系，对因果逻辑与突破式创新的关系没有显著调节作用。研究结论对企业创新管理实践具有重要指导价值。     

Investments and uncertainty revisited: the case of the US economy

This article examines the relationship between investments and uncertainty for the US economy, as the latter is approximated by consumer sentiment, purchasing managers’ prospects and economic policy uncertainty. Contrary to the existing literature, we provide evidence that this relationship is time varying. The time variation is attributed to the observed temporal replacement effect between private and public investments. Furthermore, we show that there are two distinct correlation regimes in this relationship and unless we concentrate on them, we cannot fully unravel the real link between uncertainty and investments. Finally, we examine whether the use of the two correlation regimes provides better forecasts for investments compared to the use of the uncertainty indices alone. The forecasting exercise reveals that the use of correlation regimes provides statistically superior out-of-sample forecasts.     

MONETARY POLICY UNCERTAINTY AND ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS

We investigate the relationship between uncertainty about monetary policy and its transmission mechanism, and economic fluctuations. We propose a new term structure model where the second moments of macroeconomic variables and yields can have a first‐order effect on their dynamics. The data favor a model with two unspanned volatility factors that capture uncertainty about monetary policy and the term premium. Uncertainty contributes negatively to economic activity. Two dimensions of uncertainty react in opposite directions to a shock to the real economy, and the response of inflation to uncertainty shocks varies across different historical episodes.     

Modeling nonlinear Granger causality between the oil price and U.S. dollar: A wavelet based approach

In this paper, we use a wavelet approach to study the linear and nonlinear Granger causality between the real oil price and the real effective U.S. Dollar exchange rate. Instead of analyzing the time series at their original level, as it is usually done, we first decompose the two macroeconomic variables at various scales of resolution using wavelet decomposition and then we study the relationships among the decomposed series on a scale by scale basis. A major finding of this paper is that the linear and nonlinear causal relationships between the real oil price and the real effective U.S. Dollar exchange rate vary over frequency bands as it depends on the time scales. Indeed, there is a strong bidirectional causal relationship between the real oil price and the real dollar exchange rate for large time horizons, i.e. corresponding to fundamentalist traders, especially fund managers and institutional investors. But, for the first frequency band which corresponds to a class of traders whom investment horizon is about 3-months and whom trading is principally speculative (noise traders), the causality runs only from the real oil prices to real effective U.S dollar exchange rate.     

Causal Linkages among the Product Diversification of Exports,Economic Globalization and Economic Growth

This paper examines causal relationships between economic globalization, the three indices for product diversification of exports (Theil index, intensive margin and extensive margin) and economic growth in the unbalanced panel data framework in 139 countries over the period 1970–2010. We also consider the subgroup of the countries related to the income levels and run the panel Granger non‐causality tests for heterogeneous panels. The empirical results indicate that there is a bidirectional causal relationship between economic globalization and economic growth. There is also a significant causal relationship that runs from all three indices for the diversification of exports to economic growth. After implementing various robustness checks, we observe that diversification of exports and economic globalization are positively related with economic growth merely in the upper middle economies.     

Uncertainty and the macroeconomy: evidence from an uncertainty composite indicator

This article proposes a uncertainty composite indicator (UCI) based on three distinct sources of uncertainty (namely financial, political, and macroeconomic) for the US economy on the period 1985–2015. For that, we use a dynamic factor model, summarizing efficiently six individual uncertainty proxies, namely two macroeconomic and financial uncertainty factors based on the unpredictability, a measure of (micro)economic uncertainty, the implied volatility index, the corporate bond spreads, and an index of economic policy uncertainty. We then compare the effects of uncertainty on economic activity when the UCI is used instead of individual uncertainty proxies in structural VAR models. The interest of our UCI is to synthesize theses effects within one measure of uncertainty. Overall, the UCI was able to account for the most important dynamics of uncertainty which play an important role in business cycles.     

Uncertainty and investment evidence from a panel of Chinese firms

Using data from various Chinese companies for the period 1994–2005 and applying GMM (System) technique, we report some stylized facts regarding the link between uncertainty and investment, where uncertainty is measured as the volatility of daily stock market returns. Controlling for the short- and long-run investment dynamics, we discover important effects of measured uncertainty on firm-level investment. Our study consistently indicates a positive and statistically significant effect of uncertainty on the company investment. Further more the macroeconomic and firm-specific components of uncertainty also have a significant positive effect on their own. Higher risk perception leading to higher investment, and in turn stronger aspirations of reinvestment.     

Chinese Online Unemployment-Related Searches and Macroeconomic Indicators

Official monthly unemployment data is unavailable in China, while intense public interest in unemployment requires timely and accurate information. Using data on web queries from lead search engines in China, Baidu and Google, I build two indices measuring intensity of online unemployment-related searches. The unemployment-related search indices identify a structural break in the time series between October and November 2008, which corresponds to a turning point indicated by some macroeconomic indicators. The unemployment- related search indices are proven to have significant correlation with Purchasing Managers＇ Employment Indices and a set of macroeconomic indicators that are closely related to changes in unemployment in China. The results of Granger causality analysis show that the unemployment-related search indices can improve predictions of the c indicators. It suggests that unemploy- ment-related searches can potentially provide valuable, timely, and low-cost information for macroeconomic monitoring.     

The macroeconomic impact of financial and uncertainty shocks

The extraordinary events surrounding the Great Recession have cast a considerable doubt on the traditional sources of macroeconomic instability. In their place, economists have singled out financial and uncertainty shocks as potentially important drivers of economic fluctuations. Empirically distinguishing between these two types of shocks, however, is difficult because increases in economic uncertainty are strongly associated with a widening of credit spreads, an indication of a tightening in financial conditions. This paper uses the penalty function approach within the SVAR framework to examine the interaction between financial conditions and economic uncertainty and to trace out the impact of these two types of shocks on the economy. The results indicate that (1) financial shocks have a significant adverse effect on economic outcomes and that such shocks were an important source of cyclical fluctuations since the mid-1980s; (2) uncertainty shocks, especially those implied by uncertainty proxies that do not rely on financial asset prices, are also an important source of macroeconomic disturbances; and (3) uncertainty shocks have an especially negative economic impact in situations where they elicit a concomitant tightening of financial conditions. Evidence suggests that the Great Recession was likely an acute manifestation of the toxic interaction between uncertainty and financial shocks.     

风险还是机遇：经济政策不确定性对制造业突破式创新的影响

利用2010—2017年中国A股制造业上市公司数据，基于实物期权理论与宏观经济政策不确定性理论揭示经济政策不确定性对制造业突破式创新的影响及作用机制。由行为金融学视角出发，考察管理者过度自信对两者关系的调节作用。结果表明：经济政策不确定性对制造业突破式创新具有抑制作用，且这种抑制作用在先进制造业中更显著；管理者过度自信可削弱经济政策不确定性对制造业突破式创新的抑制作用；相较国有制造企业，非国有制造企业受经济政策不确定性的影响更显著，且管理者过度自信在非国有制造企业中的调节作用更显著。进一步分析其作用机制发现，融资约束在经济政策不确定性与制造业突破式创新关系中起部分中介作用。研究结论对制造业降低经济政策不确定性带来的风险，寻求高质量发展机遇具有一定的启示。