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Macroeconomic effects of uncertainty shocks: Evidence from Korea

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  • Cho, Dooyeon
  • Kim, Husang

Abstract

This paper proposes a new measure of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) for Korea by fine-tuning the keywords and exploiting information drawn from a wide variety of local newspapers. The uniqueness of our new EPU index lies mainly in the fact that it uses a set of keywords that correspond much more closely to actual language use and better reflect the economic environment of Korea, which is classified as a small open economy. After shocks to EPU being identified, we employ these shocks to estimate the impulse responses using local projections. Unlike the existing measure, our results show that shocks to EPU lead to a significant decline in macroeconomic aggregates such as output, consumption, investment, and employment. Thus our results suggest a refinement of the EPU index in general for other countries accordingly. We also develop policy-specific uncertainty indices and show that they capture important historical events related to the corresponding policies, such as monetary and fiscal measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Cho, Dooyeon & Kim, Husang, 2023. "Macroeconomic effects of uncertainty shocks: Evidence from Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:84:y:2023:i:c:s1049007822001270
    DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2022.101571
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic policy uncertainty; Uncertainty shocks; Local projections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E66 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General Outlook and Conditions
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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