New publication on the measurement of economic policy uncertainty
In their article Alexander Kupfer and Josef Zorn propose a novel way to construct an index for economic policy uncertainty that does not depend on language proficiency. They use two specific features of search volume extraction on Google Trends, combine policy-relevant search queries, and construct our Google economic policy uncertainty index for nine Eastern European countries.
They illustratively show that major policy-related events are captured and find that shocks on economic policy uncertainty yield a sizable impact on macroeconomic variables.
Alexander Kupfer & Josef Zorn (2019): A Language-Independent Measurement of Economic Policy Uncertainty in Eastern European Countries. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, DOI: 10.1080/1540496X.2018.1559140.