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A century of Economic Policy Uncertainty through the French–Canadian lens

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  • Ardia, David
  • Bluteau, Keven
  • Kassem, Alaa

Abstract

A novel token-distance-based triple approach is proposed for identifying EPU mentions in textual documents. The method is applied to a corpus of French-language news to construct a century-long historical EPU index for the Canadian province of Quebec. The relevance of the index is shown in a macroeconomic nowcasting experiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Ardia, David & Bluteau, Keven & Kassem, Alaa, 2021. "A century of Economic Policy Uncertainty through the French–Canadian lens," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:205:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521002159
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109938
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Dario Caldara & Matteo Iacoviello & Patrick Molligo & Andrea Prestipino & Andrea Raffo, 2019. "Does Trade Policy Uncertainty Affect Global Economic Activity?," FEDS Notes 2019-09-04, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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    5. Donadelli, Michael & Gufler, Ivan & Pellizzari, Paolo, 2020. "The macro and asset pricing implications of rising Italian uncertainty: Evidence from a novel news-based macroeconomic policy uncertainty index," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
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    9. Ardia, David & Bluteau, Keven & Boudt, Kris, 2019. "Questioning the news about economic growth: Sparse forecasting using thousands of news-based sentiment values," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1370-1386.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic uncertainty; Policy uncertainty; Canada; Quebec; Token-distance-based triple; Issues; Nowcasting; Sentometrics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

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